


Humble and Loyal: Katherine of Aragon's Story

by VanillaBean_Crema



Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, The Tudors, Tudor England - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Childbirth, F/M, Gen, Historically Accurate, Infidelity, Intrigue, Marriage, Mature Themes Later in Work, Miscarriages, Pregnancy, Romance, Royals, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 21
Words: 49,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23169793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaBean_Crema/pseuds/VanillaBean_Crema
Summary: Catalina,Princess of Aragon, leaves behind everything she knows and loves about her homeland in order to make a marriage to further her parents' ambitions. When tragedy strikes, the princess, now known as Katherine, must use all her considerable wit to save herself from ruin—and ensnare the love of a prince; but will humility and loyalty be enough to preserve her place in his affections—or her throne?
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Henry VIII of England, Henry VIII/Bessie Blount, Henry VIII/Mary Boleyn, Jane Seymour/Henry VIII of England, Katherine of Aragon/Arthur Tudor, Katherine of Aragon/Henry VIII of England
Comments: 12
Kudos: 86





	1. The Gray Sea of Uncertainty

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic of any kind, so I'm pretty fresh. That said, any feedback whatsoever would be appreciated. This is a historical fanfic, and I promise my readers that I will adhere to the record as often as possible. Thanks for reading.

1501  
The deck of the ship rolled and pitched, causing Catalina to stumble and reach out desperately, her plump hand grasping for the sleeve of the lady-in-waiting next to her. Her nails scrabbled at the heavy slubbed silk of Maria de Salinas' trumpet-shaped oversleeve, and she took a small step, leaning her weight against her friend, who without turning to look pulled the Enfanta sharply against her, balancing both of their bodies against one of the posts that supported the brocaded canopy Doña Elvira had insisted be erected on the upper deck, so that the princess's creamy Lancastrian complexion would not incur any blemishes from the assaulting rays of the sun. If only there was sunlight, Catalina thought wistfully, still gripping Maria's sleeve. Since setting sail from Aragon months ago, the wind and gray rain had not ceased to pound and toss their ship, as it was doing now, and her very flesh seemed to cry out to her for heat and brightness.  
"It is misery," said Maria, turning to face Catalina. Though she was a nobleman's daughter and therefore Catalina's inferior, Maria had known the Enfanta for most of their lives, and as the older and bolder of the two of them, she often spoke aloud what Catalina was thinking. As she spoke now, a crack of weak sunlight broke the cover of cloud that straggled like a beggar's unkempt gray beard across the steely sky, illuminating for the barest moment her sharp-featured face with its mirthful mouth and flashing black eyes. Maria was a Spaniard from a long line of Spaniards; the saturnine features of her forebears had passed straight down the line of descent to her, their Iberian blood unmuddled by the effects of many dynastic European marriages, as Catalina's was. "I cannot believe she"—and here, Maria threw a look of extreme exasperation in the direction of Doña Elvira—insisted on dragging us all up here, to stand about in the cold and damp for hours at a time. She's lucky none of us has caught consumption and died!" she finished, irreverently.  
"At least the air up here is fresher," ventured Catalina, halfheartedly. The cabins where she and her retinue of young ladies-in-waiting and her duenna, the indomitable Doña Elvira, had lodged for the duration of their trip were now redolent with the sickly stench of seasickness. Catalina herself had been bedridden for the first two weeks of the journey, and so now she pulled her cloak more securely about her shoulders, inhaling the briny sea air in great lungfuls, hoping she didn't look like a fish beached on the bank of a stream.  
"The sea in Spain is green and as still as glass," remarked Maria de Salinas, tucking a strand of midnight-colored hair back under her stiff silk cap. "I have never seen it so gray."  
"Everything is gray right now," said Catalina, surveying the roiling water, which was the color of iron, and the sky, which seemed at this moment somehow heavier and closer than it had ever felt to her in Spain. Her heart gave a little twinge. She missed her home so much. She missed her family's palaces, all of them great spread-out structures with brightly painted tile floors, elegant twisting spires, burbling fountains and warm, stone baths sunk deep into the ground. She missed the food: the succulent roast meats, the cool drinking water, the spiced wine and her own favorite delicacy, the blood-red pomegranates. Most of all, she missed her parents: Her father, King Ferdinand of Aragon , stocky, dark, mustached, and contemplative, who though quite grave never raised his voice to her and had instilled in her since a young age the responsibility she had as an Enfanta, a princess of Spain, to do kind and charitable things and inspire pride and good will in her subjects, as he had done; and her mother—her beautiful mother, Queen Isabel of Castille, who seemed to be every kind of woman at once: the warrior queen, who had taught Catalina to ride her horse side-saddle better and faster than some men could do normally; the saintly queen, who for as long as Catalina could remember would take her upon her knee and teach her about Jesus and Our Lady; the great wife, who had taught Catalina to bake bread, order a household, and embroider men's shirts. What Catalina wouldn't give to embrace Queen Isabel one more time—to feel her mother's soft body seem to open up and receive her own, to smell her scent of roses and fresh-cut grass. She wrung her hands together where they rested against the point of her tightly laced, gem-encrusted bodice and hoped Maria had not seen, because for her to talk about how lonely she had felt would only make it that much worse, and she was afraid to show that she cared because she knew as a princess she must be brave and strong. Still, her eyes prickled.  
Maria, who counted the Enfanta as her closest bosom friend, of course missed nothing. "My lady, please don't be afraid," she said, in a more conciliatory tone of voice. "We are almost to england, and then you will be so caught up in the joy of your new life, you won't have time to miss Spain. Think about Prince Arthur," she concluded, with a glint of mischief in her eye.  
Catalina's hand moved reflexively to the top of her bodice, where she kept Arthur's letters tied with a length of black silk ribbon, underneath her satin kirtle and chemise, right against her heart. They were rather formal letters, and written in Latin—the only language she and her intended husband had in common; but she felt—or at least hoped—that she could sense real affection and interest between the stilted lines.  
"Feeling better?" asked Maria jocularly, grinning at her friend even as the waves rocked the ship dangerously and she had to grasp the canopy's moorings so as not to slip.  
"I don't know," murmured Catalina, her mind whirring. "What if he is an awful boy?" she burst out, surprising herself.  
"I was wondering if you'd considered that," said Maria. "You keep your thoughts so close to your breast, I was not sure. But you have a portrait. We have all seen it. He seems a well-made young man," Maria consoled.  
Catalina reached down and lifted up the girdle chain which was fastened around her waist and hung down to her knees. At its end she had fastened a heavy golden locket, which she held up to the wan light to read for the hundred time the words that were engraved upon its gleaming surface. To My Dearest Spouse, Catalina, it read. Catalina used her fingernail to unfasten the locket's clasp, and it fell open, revealing the painted miniature within. Staring with solemn blue-gray eyes out from the depths of the locket, his dark auburn curls framing his face, was the pale and rather serious likeness of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, firstborn son and heir of Henry VII of England, and his wife Elizabeth of York. As it always did when she beheld her fiancé's painted image, Catalina's heart skipped a beat—though out of infatuation or anxiety, she couldn't be sure.  
"You see,my lady?" said Maria with finality. "He will be a gift of a husband."  
"But will he?" Catalina asked, worrying her lower lip with her two front teeth. She could not help but think of her brother Juan, who had been so handsome, so vigorous, but who had succumbed to exhaustion and died after too much indulgence in the marriage bed with his young bride, Margaret of Austria. She shuddered involuntarily, remembering the still-fresh grief she and her mother, father and sisters had shared over Juan's death, and how Margaret most of all had been utterly bereft—so inconsolable, in fact, that she had miscarried Juan's unborn child—and how, as much as she had wanted to comfort Margaret, she had been unable because, in a way, she had blamed her for her brother's death. Oh God, please, don't let my husband come to any harm on my account, she prayed, feeling childishly apprehensive. I couldn't stand it if his family thought me to blame for any misfortune!  
"My lady," hissed Maria between her gleaming white teeth. "Away with that locket. She approaches."  
Catalina released the jewel and turned just in time to espy Doña Elvira bearing down on her, looking quite like an elephant Catalina had once seen at her parents' menagerie in her crumpled gray silk gown with its full, stiff-pleated skirt doing nothing to minimize the woman's considerable hips and backside. The duenna looked, if possible, more severe than usual. "Your Highness," she said with emphasis. "You must cease that distasteful gnawing this instant. You look positively miserable. We are approaching the coast. You must look your best to receive your father-in-law King Henry. Come! I have your gown and jewelry ready." Doña Elvira's beady gaze swept over the deck and came to rest on Maria de Salinas, who alone of the ladies-in-waiting was left above-deck, the others having scattered at the sight of the duenna. "You," she said. "Go to your cabin with the other ladies and make yourself presentable. Do not tarry," she called imperiously in her gruff bark as Maria sashayed away, her very bearing oozing defiance and pride. Catalina's last thoughts, as she followed Doña Elvira to her cabin, feeling as though her knees had turned to water, was that she wished she had half of Maria's courage. As it was, she had never been more uncertain of herself. Though she tried to do as Doña Elvira instructed and "make herself look agreeable", she couldn't help but feel the weight of her situation bearing down upon her shoulders. Soon—very soon—she would meet Arthur, and the rest of her life would begin.


	2. Approaching the Shore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who’s read Chapter 1 so far. I hope you enjoyed reading the beginning of KofA's journey as much as I loved writing it. I'll try to update as frequently as possible. I forgot to mention last chapter, but any remarks on editing, pacing, whether or not you're enjoying the work so far—basically all constructive criticism is welcome. I want to maximize your enjoyment of my work. —VB_C

1501  
Catalina sank onto a stool in the middle of the grandest cabin aboard her father's ship. The waves still rocked the vessel gently, but the weather had become considerably less inclement in the hour or so that had passed since Doña Elvira had dragged her away from the deck and the company of Maria. Still, Catalina felt as though her stomach churned and pitched in time with the restless waters—an unpleasant experience that was only exacerbated by her nerves. She stared down at the mirror Doña Elvira had affixed to the end of her bejeweled girdle, next to Arthur's locket and a coral beaded rosary that had been Catalina's mother Isabel's last gift to her daughter before she embarked on her journey to England. In the highly polished silver surface, Catalina's reflection stared back at her with a look that was almost plaintive. What was she doing? How could it already be time for her to meet Arthur? How could she be this close to becoming a wife and a future queen of a country she had never even visited?  
Catalina, more than any of her three elder sisters, Isabella, Juana or Maria, resembled their mother in appearance. They shared the same loose, curling red-gold hair, the same blue-green eyes, and the same rather deep, husky voice. Also like Queen isabel, she was short in stature and fine-boned, though she tended to plumpness. Her hands and feet were small, and she had shapely arms and legs. It had not taken her long after becoming a woman to develop a body that curved gently at the hips and breasts, though at nearly sixteen years of age her round face still retained much of its youthful soft angles. Her skin was very fair and unfreckled—a trait she had inherited from her mother's English ancestors—though it blushed easily when Catalina exerted herself or felt strong emotion. Her mouth was full and its corners were often turned up into a smile, though Catalina had always been a mite self-conscious of the tiny gap between her small front teeth. Out of all her siblings, however, Catalina was the least like either of her parents in temperament. She was neither decisive and politically adroit like her father, King Ferdinand, yet nor was she vibrant and opinionated like her mother. Catalina as the youngest member of her family, often found it the best course of action to hold one's tongue, keep one's own council, please everyone. While her siblings squabbled, she was more likely to be tucked into a corner somewhere in her mother's sprawling palace gardens, reading a book—for she was not unintelligent and had a massive appetite for literature. "You are a jewel of a pupil," her tutor, an Italian prelate called Alessandro Geraldini, had once remarked to her after Catalina had delivered a flawless translation of Cicero, "but it can't be said of you, as it often is of brilliant girls, that you would have been better off a boy; for in all my years, never have I met a more docile creature." Catalina had not known what to make of this statement, and had asked her mother and father at supper in the dining hall that night whether it had been meant as a compliment.  
"My child," said King Ferdinand, "you have been promised in marriage to a boy who will one day rule the kingdom of England. As his queen, you will have many responsibilities. You will be expected to write diplomatic letters, to entertain foreign dignitaries, to act as your husband's regent in emergencies. You will be his second-in-command in all things. But," he said, raising a hand as Catalina made to respond, silencing her, "you are also going to be a wife one day, and the expectations of wives are always the same, be they married to merchants, peasants or emperors. You must be obedient to your husband. His comforts will be your priorities; you must make yourself agreeable to him in all ways; and you must give him as many children as you can. So, do not take Father Geraldini's words as either a barb or a compliment. Take them as fact, and when you pray to Our Lord this night, thank him heartily for making you at once fit to be a queen and a wife."  
Catalina had thanked her father for his advice, and had done as he ordered and prayed fervently that night, thanking God for blessing her so immensely. But now, sitting on her stool in her cabin on the ship, she could not help but remember the shadow that had passed over Queen Isabel's face as her husband had admonished their youngest daughter. Queen Isabel, as it was, was ruler of The ancient Spanish kingdom of Castille in her own right—a title she had inherited long before marrying Ferdinand, Air to the throne of the much smaller region known as Aragon, and consolidated their kingdoms. She had ridden alongside her husband into battle and lost several of his children to the hard living conditions while an army that was half hers battled the Muslim Moors, chasing them from the south of Spain. Alone with her thoughts now, Catalina wondered how much her mother actually agreed with her father's sentiments that being a wife and queen meant utter subservience to her husband. But I must submit to Arthur's will, she thought, curling her freezing fingers into the rich stuff of her gown. I will be a foreigner in England. I have no kingdom of my own, no army at my command. Even if—God forbid—Father or Mother were to die, my sisters would inherit Castille and Aragon before I would. I am entirely at Arthur and his family's mercy. She gave a shudder, her thoughts turning once again to the question that had played through her mind for weeks now—what kind of a boy was Arthur? She had only his Latin letters to go by, and they were so formal, she could glean hardly a scrap of information about the real boy who had written them from the florid language and plattitudes. Would he be studious, like her, or would he be like her poor brother Juan, who during his lifetime preferred dancing and jousting to books? Would he be brooding or melancholy, or even angry and bombastic? Would he criticize her embroidery, her deportment, her manner of dress? Would he be ashamed of her lack of English? Would he find her short and dumpy? Would he think her haggard-looking, after the bouts of seasickness that had afflicted her recently?  
Or would Arthur be as handsome and solemn and gentle as he looked in the miniature Catalina so often clasped in her hands? Would he love her, cherish her, value her opinions? Would he read books with her, come to mass with her each day, take the air with her in the palace garden? Would he write poems to her in his illuminated prayer books, as the courtly fashion was among lovers? Would he ... Catalina blushed ... Would he come to her bed every night? Would the two of them beget a brood of princes?  
Catalina wasn't supposed to know what went on in the marriage bed, and she was sure her pious parents would be aghast that she had such thoughts, but it was nearly impossible, with three older sisters who had their own retinues of married ladies-in-waiting, not to know. She had often wondered if consummating her marriage would be as painful as some of the noblewomen said, and, though she chided herself for having such impure desires, she found herself hoping that after The first time, the marital act was as pleasurable as some others asserted. She wanted desperately to ask someone, but found the subject so mortifying, she couldn't even broach it with the straightforward Maria—who, though she was older than Catalina, probably knew as little as she herself did after all, seeing as she was not even betrothed and was expected, like all Catalina's ladies, to make good marriages to englishmen in the coming years. Therefore, Catalina had no choice but to hope, pray, and worry herself half to death about the circumstances of her married life with Arthur, Prince of Wales.  
"Your Highness, stop it at once," commanded Doña Elvira, striding back into the cabin, her arms draped with Catalina's most heavily embroidered mantilla. "You will wrinkle your gown beyond repair."  
Catalina rose shakily, unclenching her hands and releasing fistfuls of her brocaded skirts. The gown Doña Elvira had decided she must wear to make her debut in England was a warm russet color that offset Catalina's reddish hair and fair complexion to her advantage. Cut in the Spanish style, its bodice, laced tightly in the back, had a stiff, arched neckline embroidered with pearls. It's heavy, gathered skirt opened in front to reveal a pleated kirtle made of gleaming cloth of gold, embroidered with the crowned pomegranate, which Catalina had selected to become her personal emblem as Princess of Wales. The gown's skirt was made to appear even fuller by way of a bell-shaped farthingale, and it's sleeves, made of the same embroidered golden fabric, were tight to just below her elbows and then flared out magnificently, their pearl-encrusted ends reaching halfway down her fingers. Over them, her duenna fastened a pair of furred oversleeves, which were to keep her warm on the shore, as the weather in England was notoriously cold and damp. Around her neck, she wore a golden crucifix, another gift from her mother, which was bedecked with flawless, blood-read rubies representing the five wounds sustained by Christ on the cross. Doña Elvira had allowed Catalina's long hair to flow freely down her back, and she would have preferred to leave it uncovered, but the stern duenna had dismissed this desire out of hand, insisting that it would be vastly improper for Arthur or his father King Henry to see her without her sheer golden mantilla, which Doña Elvira was now securing to her scalp with an ornate tortoiseshell comb.  
Catalina worried that the overall impression her cumbersome gown and heavy jewels gave was one of vanity or haughtiness, and she also fretted that the wide skirt did as little for her buxom figure as it did for Doña Elvira's portly one. "Perhaps," she remarked aloud, more to fill the chilly silence between herself and her duenna than anything, "I will have some English gowns made for me after I am married."  
"English gowns," chuffed Doña Elvira, her two chins quivering as she pulled hairpin after hairpin from the corner of her thin mouth. "The very thought. Englishwomen dress very immodestly—nearly as much so as Frenchwoman. Your parents would be so embarrassed to have a daughter of theirs gallivanting about the country, allowing all the world to see her—"  
A none-too-gentle BUMP beneath their feet caused the abandoned stool to tip over and both Catalina and Doña Elvira to glance around in alarm. Then, from outside the cabin door, came the unmistakable sounds of the ship's crewmen. "Land ho!" Catalina's stomach gave a great jolt. "We are in England," she whispered. "I will meet my husband soon."


	3. England and Her Sovereign

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, again, readers! I am pleasantly surprised to see how many reads this work has received since its publication, and I fervently hope that I have picked up a fan base for KofA, because I for my part am certainly enjoying telling her story. In this chapter, we see a change of names, which I tried to make as seamless as possible. As always, comments and critiques are always welcome, and I should be uploading another installment soon, so be on the lookout. —VBC

1501  
Catalina sighed with pleasure as she sank into the bath Doña Elvira had had some of her Spanish maids help prepare for her in her chambers at the bishop's palace at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Finally, finally, she could feel clean and warm, after her harrowing sea voyage and the short trip on horseback from the beach at Plymouth. She sighed, stretching as much as the confines of the cloth-lined wooden tub would allow, remembering how very many Englishmen and women had shown up to greet their new princess. They had cheered loudly at the sight of her being greeted by the Mayor of Plymouth and his aldermen, and they had gawked at her attendants' Spanish dress, figured silks rich with embroidery and liveried with her personal crest of the crowned pomegranate. Some of the English peasants had pointed at her servants and exchanged astonished looks. When she asked Doña Elvira about this, the duenna had explained to Catalina that her servants of Moorish descent, with their brown skin and coily hair, were a novelty to these English, who had never seen African people before. Catalina was not surprised, for England was a small, far-flung island nation that for the better part of the last century had been too occupied with its own bloody civil wars to have had much of a stake in international trade. Of course, the grandeur of her household would be a fascination to them.  
It had taken over an hour for all of her belongings and those of her servants to be unloaded from the Spanish ships that had conveyed her party to England. Catalina oversaw the unpacking of the great, iron-bound chests that contained a magnificent silver and gold table service, expensive glassware cut from Venetian silver, and antique and highly valuable jewelry belonging to the Spanish royal house of Trastámara from which Catalina was descended. She was well aware of the value of these items, for they were to form a part of her dowry, and she was to present them to King Henry at such a time as her father saw fit. She was not to use the plate and goblets, nor to wear the jewels—she had been, in fact, admonished by Queen Isabel not even to touch the precious dower items. Therefore, she wanted to be absolutely certain that they were handled with care, and so watched the servants with a stern expression that was so in contrast with her usually placid demeanor that they seemed to be taking extra precautions with the trunks—as she had hoped they would.  
More and more English people had come out of their homes and businesses, lining the streets as Catalina and her retinue wound in a long, brightly colored procession through the countryside to Hampshire. Now, as she basked in the warmth of water heated over a roaring hearthfire, the former Enfanta of Spain wished she had paid more attention to the geography of her new country; but the truth was that she had had a rather miserable trip from Plymouth to Hampshire, balanced precariously in the side saddle atop a fat, gray pony provided by the Mayor of Plymouth, shivering violently in her silk dress as fierce November winds battered her face and nearly swept the cap from her head. She hoped that, for the next leg of her journey, which would take her to London for her wedding, the king would provide her a covered litter in which to travel. No Spanish winter had ever been so bitterly cold, damp and windy.  
The Mayor of Plymouth had dispatched a messenger at once to alert the king and Prince Arthur, who were lodging in London, of the Enfanta's arrival. Catalina estimated, as Doña Elvira helped her to wash her mane of hair with expensive soap made from olive oil and herbs, that the king and her betrothed might arrive as soon as tomorrow or the next day. The fluttering of her belly by now was such a familiar feeling, Catalina had almost gotten used to it whenever she thought of meeting Arthur. She hoped that Doña Elvira would not insist on making her wear an ugly gown out of her strong sense of propriety. Catalina already had her most flattering one in mind, and she prayed her duenna would not spoil her meeting with Arthur by ruining the image of herself that she, Catalina, was trying to portray—that of a graceful, poised and grown-up princess, who in fact only had a duenna for the sake of her mother's peace of mind, and not out of any great need on her own part. She wanted to entrance Arthur, to start out on the right foot, to make him be not only willing, but desirous, to be her husband.  
Some minutes later, smelling of fresh herbs and rosewater, she stepped from the tub, which was immediately removed from the room by several maids, who walked awkwardly from the room bearing their burden and making sure that they did not spill a drop of the used bath water upon the Turkish carpet Donña Elvira had had spread across the stone floor upon their arrival. The duenna helped Catalina into her chemise and fine woolen stockings, then directed her to a highbacked wooden chair, its arms carved with the entwined initials of the king and Queen of England, an H for Henry and an E for Elizabeth. The chair sat close to the fire, and Doña Elvira combed Catalina's mass of curls out and draped them over its back so that they could dry more quickly in its warmth. Catalina stretched like a contented kitten in her chemise, which had an arched neckline and cuffs embroidered with blackwork K's, for the name she would now go by as Princess of Wales: Katherine.  
It had come to her as a small shock when the Mayor of Plymouth had addressed her as "Your Highness, Princess Katherine," and the surrounding throng had taken up the cry of "Hail, her Highness Katherine, Princess of Wales." Though she had of course known that her name would be altered to its English variant, as those of the foreign brides of royal men always were, she was still getting used to the hardness of her new name, the way it felt abrupt, almost obtrusive, on her tongue when she whispered it to herself. "Don't worry, My Lady," Maria de Salinas had comforted her, observing her discomfiture. "I will have to change my name when I marry an Englishman as well. I will be Mary Somebody. Mary Parker, or Mary Stanhope, or Mary Seymour." She grinned and winked one dark-lashed eye. "Katherine and Mary—we will be two proper English ladies then."  
And yet, in the silence of this moment, as Doña Elvira bustled about, replacing her comb in its trunk, pulling aside the velvet curtains of Catalina's—Katherine's—bed, and inspecting its heavily embroidered coverlet, the former Enfanta found her mind drifting as it often did to her sisters, her books, her gardens, her home. It was only when she pictured her mother's resolute, beautiful face, that she squared her narrow shoulders and reminded herself to be strong and to put from her mind the golden days of a childhood that, upon her marriage to Arthur Tudor, would be over and permanently lost to her.  
Footsteps echoed loudly in the stone corridor outside, and she heard the door to her outer chamber, where her ladies slept, bang open without ceremony. "The King approaches," called one of the maids. "He is demanding to see la Enfanta!"  
Doña Elvira rose, chins quivering, and exited the room at a speed Katherine would have thought her rotund and elderly body quite incapable of. She, for her part, sat quite still for a moment, frozen in place. The king? The king was here? Now, in the late afternoon? He wanted to see her ... now?  
Suddenly, the gravity of the situation hit Katherine all at once, and she sprang to her feet. If the king was here, then surely that meant ... surely that meant ...  
"Prince Arthur," Katherine gasped. "Maria!" she shouted. "Maria de Salinas!"  
The door to her bedroom seemed to explode inward, and Maria de Salinas strode in. "I must be dressed," Katherine demanded, and then, out of habit, added, "please."  
Maria glanced toward the stiff cone-shaped farthingale and heavy black velvet gown Doña Elvira had laid across a table before rushing from the room, but Katherine shook her head vehemently. "I will look like a nun in that," she cried, on the edge of what might have been hysteria. "Quick, Maria, open my trunks. Help me find my green gown and kirtle—don't bother about jewels or a cap." As Maria began rifling through trunks on one side of the room, Katherine dove for the nearest one to her. Flipping its lid back, she thrust her hands into the piles of folded gowns within, feeling for the almost slippery texture of her favorite of the many pieces of clothing that had been commissioned by her parents for her trousseau. With a soft cry of glee, her fingertips brushed the emerald fabric, and she dragged it up as a fisherman does a netful of herring from the depths of the wooden box, just as Maria thrust a pair of delicate leather slippers and a matching green kirtle embellished with tiny seed pearls into her hands. Katherine stood stock-still as Maria laced her into her bodice, gave her hair a final perfunctory sweep back over her shoulders, and slung a silver girdle low about her hips. The final addition to Katherine's attire was a pair of bell-shaped sleeves of delicate silver tissue, which Maria laced to her gown with nimble fingers. The backs of the sleeves laced closed with lengths of emerald ribbon, and Maria pulled great handfuls of Katherine's voluminous chemise sleeves through the openings between these lacings to create a slashed and puffed effect that was very popular at the Spanish court. Just as she was finisheing doing this, Maria and Katherine overheard the voice of Doña Elvira, raised in outrage. "My Lords, I must insist that you do not disturb Her Highness Katherine at this time. She is not ready to receive visitors."  
"And who, pray tell, are you?" boomed a man's voice from the other side of the door to the outer chamber, through which the flustered maid had come what felt to Katherine like mere moments earlier.  
"I am Doña Elvira Manuel, the Princess's duenna, designated head of her household by her Grace the Queen of Castille," answered Doña Elvira. Katherine could envision the older woman drawing herself up to her full height, her chins trembling dangerously.  
"Duenna?" asked a slightly softer male voice.  
"Nurse," clarified the louder man. "And what, Doña Elvira Manuel, so indisposes Her Highness Katherine that she cannot receive even her father-in-law?"  
"She ... She is in a state of undress—she—" Doña Elvira spluttered, clearly cowed by the king's evident lack of respect for her station as lady of Her Highness's household. "She is not ready," she finally muttered, lamely.  
"Or, perhaps," said the king in a low and suspicious tone, "there is something wrong with this princess, something that you, Madam Nurse, have been given orders to conceal from me. What?" he demanded. "Is she ugly? Malformed? What is it that you hide from me, woman?"  
Katherine and Maria shared a horrified glance. Ugly? Malformed? Katherine must do something, before the proud Doña Elvira dismissed the king—and the as-yet-unidentified younger man—and leave him with such disastrous doubts about her. "Doña Elvira," she called out, wishing that her voice could be less tremulous. "Please, attend me for a moment."  
"We will wait," said the king, and though Katherine could not see his face, she detected what she thought to be a wry smile in his voice. Doña Elvira burst through the inner door, and said, "Oh, thank goodness, Your Highness, you are dressed." Then she registered Katherine's lack of jewelry or headdress, and let loose a low groan. "Your Highness, what can you be thinking of, appearing to the king thus unadorned?" she almost wailed. "The king insists on seeing you now—how will I ever make you decent to receive him? He has the Prince with him, for God's sake."  
"I will appear just as I am," replied Katherine, steeling herself against a wash of anxiety as Doña Elvira confirmed her guess that now, a mere room separated herself from Arthur. "I am sure His Grace will be pleased."  
"But your hair, your face—they are uncovered," cried Doña Elvira indignantly. "You cannot appear before men thus." Her beady eyes swept the room, and, with a triumphant expression, she lunged forward and snatched up the mantilla Katherine had worn to her arrival at Plymouth earlier that day. "Oh, Doña Elvira, no ..." protested Katherine, but the duenna would not be dissuaded. She threw the floor-length veil, none-too-gently, over Katherine's head and face, swathing her in a cocoon of embroidered linen. Then, without another word, she ushered Katherine forward and into the chamber without, followed by an uncharacteristically mute Maria de Salinas.  
King Henry, the seventh English king of that name, had a slender, almost gaunt look that was ill-fitted to his resonant voice. His hair, though thinning now in his middle age, had once been a thatch of dark curls, and his eyes, though rather small, were also dark and piercing. He had an intelligent face, but not a kind one. Katherine thought one would be overgenerous to call him handsome, but there was a certain restive energy about this ruler who had clawed his way from relatively murky beginnings as the fatherless descendant of an illegitimate union between a dowager queen and a Welsh steward to the much-disputed throne of war-ravaged England. Now, Katherine found herself quite rooted to the spot by his commanding presence, unable to look away, through the mesh of her veil, from his discerning gaze as it swept from her head to the toes of her little slippered feet. "So, Madam Nurse," said the king, in a quiet rumble that sounded to Katherine's ears like the thunder that preceded a terrible storm, "you bring Her Highness to me veiled?"  
With no more words than this, the king of England strode purposefully across the chamber floor, his feet crunching softly upon the rushes scattered there, and snatched the mantilla from Katherine's head, tossing it without looking to a gaping Maria de Salinas.  
She was a comely enough maid, thought Henry VII, taking in with hungry eyes the girl who was too one day succeed his own lovely wife as queen. She had a pretty face, if rather snub-nosed, and as far as he could see, in that dowdy Spanish gown, a body that would be well-suited to bearing lusty children. Her glorious hair—probably her best feature, he mused—hung in waves well past her rounded hips. While the fat old nurse and the dark Spaniards gawked and gasped—curse them—this dignified little personage who would soon be as a daughter to him, merely stared steadily into his face from beneath lowered golden lashes, her plump hands folded demurely at her waist where the point of her bodice met the fullness of her emerald skirts. "So," said he, breaking the sudden, cloying silence, "have you enjoyed England thus far?"  
"I have, Your Grace," replied the wench, in a voice that was as unexpectedly rich and womanly as his was booming.  
"You do not find my country unbearable in her coldness?" asked the king, one corner of his mouth curving slightly, which was the closest he ever came to a smile. She noticed the tiny shift in his expression—a perceptive girl, he noted—and responded with a slight upturning of the corners of her own full mouth. "I must admit, I was quite unprepared for the difference in weather," she admitted. Perceptive and honest, Henry amended inwardly. Turning away from her slightly, he addressed the slight figure of a young man standing in the shadows just outside the chamber door. "Arthur," he boomed, "come and meet your bride, the Princess Katherine."


	4. The Prince of Wales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has finally arrived! The chapter in which Katherine meets her intended, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales. As always, I hope all readers enjoy this installment, and commentary is welcome. —VBC

1501

Katherine pulled aside the heavy leather curtains and peeked around the edge of one as the sounds of horses hooves all around her ground to a halt. They must be approaching Lambeth Palace, she thought, where she was to spend her last days as an unmarried woman before being presented to her new subjects and married to Arthur.  
Arthur. Her heart fluttered for the thousandth time, and she knew for certain that it was excitement—ecstasy, even—that caused her breath to catch and her cheeks to heat whenever she remembered her fiancé's face and the single, glorious evening they had spent together before departing Dogmersfield on their tortuous journey eastward through the November sleet to London. How he had looked at her that very first time, his gray eyes—sharper and more intelligent than she had thought they might be—piercing into her own eyes, which she was not able to restrain herself from lifting to his narrow face, which was flushed slightly, as if it had just been exposed to a driving wind. As she had stood there, quaking with nerves, suddenly feeling quite exposed without the sheer folds of her mantilla concealing her expression from view, his full, impossibly red lips moved, forming a single phrase in Latin. "My dearest spouse," he said, and reached out a white hand with long, thin fingers. A poet's hand, thought Katherine, a little dazedly, or the hand of an artist. She lifted her own hand, which felt suddenly too heavy for her, and he grasped it, pressing it, cradling it between his. Continuing to gaze raptly at him, she heard the king's expansive voice call out, "And what do you think of your little wife, my son?"  
Arthur had dragged his eyes from her face for only the barest second and replied, "I find her much to my liking, sir."  
Katherine's heart had soared. He was pleased with her, even in her unwieldy Spanish dress, even though she knew she must look quite insipid, standing there gawking at him. He liked her, even wanted her, for his eyes kept traveling from her face, down her body, and back again. All the many hours she had spent on her knees, praying that God might grant her a favorable first impression, had not been in vain.  
The rest of the night had passed in a haze of nervous excitement for Katherine. Though she felt as though her knees had liquefied, she managed somehow to entertain Arthur at a simple supper of mince pie and a warm, spiced wine called hippocras, which both warmed her chilled bones and loosened her reluctant tongue so that she was able to converse with Arthur without feeling faint. It was difficult at first for the two of them to understand one another, even in Latin, because being from two different regions entirely, each of them had been taught a different dialect of the ancient tongue. Eventually, though, each of them was able to make sense of the other's heavily accented words, and Arthur had even whispered to her, while neither Doña Elvira nor the king were in earshot, that he found her Spanish lilt "very pleasing to my ear." Feeling quite faint, she was barely able to string the words together to thank him, though from that point on she made no attempt to restrain her heavy Spanish accent.  
After dinner, Katherine's Spanish ladies, upon the suggestion of Maria de Salinas, had stood in preparation for a dance. Arthur had turned to her. "I know no Spanish dances," he admitted, his mild complexion now backlit by the rosiness of several goblets of hippocras. "Could you show me, madam?"  
"But certainly," said Katherine, rising from her place at table. "We shall teach the prince the pavan," Katherine commanded. As she spoke, several of her attendants brought out a variety of instruments—flutes, virginals, harps—and began to play a slow, formal tune. Katherine allowed Arthur to take her hand once more and let him lead her into the center of the drafty stone chamber. The rushes crackling beneath their feet, she taught him how to dance the stately pavan, taking one step to every two beats of the music. Katherine caught sight of King Henry, his wolfish features contorted into his grimace-like smile as he observed her and his son. She was not yet sure what to make of her new sovereign, this Welsh upstart king. Though he had been so abrupt while addressing her, she could not shake the feeling that behind the apparent tactlessness of his manner lay a devious and deeply suspicious mind and a political acumen so acute, she felt a pressing need to keep herself in his good graces, as she feared what might happen were he to turn against her.  
Suddenly, Katherine was drawn into a memory. It was summertime in Spain—her last summer before setting sail to England—and she was strolling in the gardens at one of her parents' royal residences. The air was heavy with the mingled scents of fragrant herbs that the palace cooks used to enhance the flavors of royal dishes, and daisies and violets opened their petals wide, drinking in the midafternoon sunshine. Katherine had just settled down on a stone bench by a fountain when Queen Isabel had appeared, materializing beside her as if from thin air.  
"My child," said Queen Isabel, "am I intruding?"  
"Never, madam," said Katherine, rising hastily from her perch and curtsying before her mother.  
"You may rise," Isabel had told her. "Child, I have come to talk to you about your future father-in-law, the king of England."  
The Spanish queen had not waited for her daughter to acknowledge her statement, but instead hurried on, speaking quietly, but with purpose. She told Katherine about how, over fifteen years before, Henry, the disinherited child of Edmund Tudor, the bastard son of a Welsh steward and the widowed queen of Henry V, had gathered an army and declared war on the vastly unpopular King Richard III, and how he had defeated Richard in battle, taking the crown of England from the slain king's bloodied head and replacing it upon his own, declaring himself sovereign of England. Katherine had felt slightly queasy, for though she knew, as everyone did, that Richard III had been an ugly, hunchbacked usurper who had murdered his own nephews, the sons of Edward IV, in order to seize the throne for himself, she could not bear to think of anyone robbed of his dignity thus, struck down like a common soldier and dispossessed of his very crown.  
"You must imagine, my daughter, what kind of a man Henry VII must be," Isabel went on.  
"The kind who could convince an entire country that he should be made ruler of a land he has no claim to," said Katherine softly. "A man of great mettle ... or great guile," she finished, looking up into her mother's serene, intelligent face.  
"Indeed," Queen Isabel had confirmed. "He has not changed much since then, my child. Though he has done much for his country—unifying her political factions, filling her coffers with gold—he has not done so by kindness or cajoling. He is miserly, mistrustful, and above all, he is ruthless. He sees people as pawns. He has contracted your marriage to his son Arthur not because of our country's great wealth, though that is certainly a benefit. He has asked for your hand for his son because above all, Henry is sensitive about his birth. He knows that the stability he has created in England, and the safety of his family, relies on the people continuing to support him as king, shaky though his claim to the throne may be. Any children between his son and a scion of the great House of Trastámara will serve to legitimize the Tudor dynasty he aims to establish."  
"Your father did not wish me to tell you all of this," Isabel admitted, the space between her golden eyebrows creasing slightly with a frown. "He thinks you are too gentle and too timorous to be given such valuable information. He would rather you be sent off to England unaware of your value to Henry Tudor, an innocent girl who will blindly follow the orders of the men around you. But I"—and here Isabel winked at her youngest —"I think your father underestimates your strength. I think that you need to know that, no matter what he tells you, Henry needs you just as much as you need him. Do not let yourself be duped, my child. And if something needs to be said, do not hesitate to speak for yourself."  
"But madam," Katherine ventured, "am I not duty bound to obey my new father in all things? Will the Lord not be displeased were I to disobey him in any way?"  
"The Lord, I think, would understand," said Isabel, reaching out and ruffling her daughter's hair. "I will miss you, Catalina, my love," she had whispered, her ocean-colored eyes misting over. "You were always, of all my children, the most like me in spirit. May you go with God to your new country, my precious, pious girl."  
Katherine was drawn out of her reverie as the gentle voice of Arthur announced, "And now, my dear Princess, I shall show you how to dance in the English fashion."  
Katherine started slightly, clearing her throat. "My Lord, I am afraid my ladies and musicians do not know English music or dance," she said apologetically.  
"No matter," interjected the king from where he still sat at the head of the supper table, scrutinizing her. "Enter!" he shouted, and the doors to the outer chamber burst open.  
Thirty or more Englishwomen, garbed in low-cut gowns with hanging sleeves and immense court trains filed into the room at once, accompanied by numerous musicians, also in English attire and already tuning their instruments. Each woman curtsied before the king, Prince Arthur, and finally Katherine, who, though quite taken aback, had had the presence of mind to ask each one's name as she raised her.  
Then, quite before Katherine had time to collect herself, the mmusicians struck up a lively tune, and as her Spanish ladies receded to the edges of the room, the Englishwomen began leaping and capering in a fast-paced English dance. She smiled with pleasure and admiration as she watched Arthur twirl and cavort with a fair-haired matron whom she vaguely remembered being introduced to her as Lady Guildford. She noticed, though, that Henry VIII still never took his eyes from her face. In a bold moment, she raised her gaze to his once more. They held one another's stare for the longest moment, before Henry glanced away. He will be a strong ally, but a formidable enemy, Katherine thought, not even quite understanding why she did. I must be wary of him.  
The revelry had lasted late into the night, but eventually Arthur and his enigmatic father had taken their leave, explaining to her that the English ladies would now be part of her household and would be accompanying her to London. Both the English royal party and Katherine's own retinue would depart Dogmersfield in the morning, but the king admonished her to take her time on the journey, sending search parties ahead to clear their way of vagabonds and other rough men who might be looking to confiscate her goods or otherwise harm her attendants.  
Before exiting her chamber, Arthur had bowed low over her hand and pressed his lips to it. They were warm, soft, and gentle against her overheated flesh. "When next we meet, my little Katherine, you will be my wife in the eyes of God and the people of this country," he murmured, straightening. "I will be counting down the minutes until that happy time."  
Throughout the winding trek to London, Katherine had railed against the unbearble slowness of it, cloistered as she was from the world in the regally festooned covered litter King Henry had lent her for her comfort during the long hours trudging through the cold, misty countryside. Though she had been heartened by the joyous reaction her presence had incited in the townspeople of each city her procession had passed through, she was still in an uncharacteristically bad humor, cramped within the cushioned litter, swathed in every fur-lined mantle she possessed, sharing the space with Doña Elvira, whose fault-finding grated more than usually on her already frayed nerves. When would they be there? How much longer until she was Princess of Wales? She could almost taste her destiny upon her lips, as sweet as hippocras.  
"Your Highness, we approach Lambeth," a servant dressed in her royal livery addressed her in Spanish. "The royal envoy is here to greet you."  
Katherine emerged, quite awkwardly, from the depths of the litter that had been lowered to the ground. Straightening up after rearranging the folds of her wide skirts, the first face she saw through the gossamer fabric of her mantilla was, quite surprisingly, the round, flushed face of a boy of around ten years old with a thatch of red-gold hair, approaching her at a fast clip atop a handsome white palfrey, whose saddle, like the boy's black velvet doublet, was richly decorated in ornate goldsmith's work.  
It was her first glimpse of Henry Tudor, Duke of York, second son of the King of England.


	5. Lambeth Palace

1501  
Henry, Duke of York, had never seen a more beautiful lady in all his ten years of life. Of course, his mother Queen Elizabeth was beautiful—everybody's mother was. His sister Mary, with her perfect rosebud mouth and jewel-green eyes, would surely grow up to be ravishingly beautiful. Even his grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, had been beautiful once, before she donned the starched wimple of a nun. But this woman, who would soon be his sister-in-law, was truly beautiful. Henry felt a sudden urge to impress her, though he little knew how; for when she removed the long veil and passed it to the stern-looking old woman beside her, he saw that her gown, made of forget-me-not blue velvet that perfectly matched the color of her eyes, was as heavily embellished with gold and jewels as his own clothing was. She bobbed a perfect curtsey to him, and he bowed in return, his stomach feeling rather wobbly. Her smile was bright white, and he noticed that she had a tiny gap between her front teeth, which to him was no imperfection, but rather enhanced her quiet, gentle beauty. She was no sophisticated courtier's wife, skilled in the game of love. She was still a girl—only his brother Arthur's age—and quite unaware of the power she could wield over men if she so desired. Henry could not take his eyes from her face.  
The pause seemed overlong before Arthur's brother addressed her again, but Katherine imagined that greeting her was an immense responsibility for the boy and surmised that he was merely nervous. She smiled encouragingly, and Henry said, rather bashfully, "I am to accompany you to Lambeth Palace, Highness. My father the king and my brother the Prince of Wales, whom you have already met, as well as my mother, Queen Elizabeth, will meet us there for a night of feasting. You will stay at Lambeth until the 12th of November, when you will be presented to the people of London. I ... I trust your journey has been a good one?"  
"It has been quite pleasing to be introduced to my new country," Katherine replied, rather glossing over the truth, that she had hated the tedious, Days-long trek through the countryside in the freezing cold, Stopping only for brief, plain meals and short periods of rest at country Inns. The prince’s cherubic face was so flushed and hopeful, turned upwards to her own, that she could not bear to disappoint him. "I am glad to have finally reached Lambeth, however, for I have long looked forward to meeting Your Highness and Her Grace the queen."  
"I am glad, madam, and thank God for sending you speedily to us," said the prince, straightening his shoulders and puffing out his chest like a miniture gentleman. There was not much of his father in this boy, mused Katherine. Where the elder Henry's face was craggy and inscrutable, this fine prince had an open, honest, and jovial air that she immediately took a liking to, though he lacked the refinement of his elder brother, the Prince of Wales. He would be an excellent companion and adviser to Arthur, when he was king, thought Katherine as she clambered back into her litter and drew the curtains closed against the winter sunlight.  
Lambeth was a rambling, medieval palace, and Katherine was given its most lavish apartments to lodge in while awaiting her wedding, five days hence. Once again, her servants, this time both Spanish and English ones, set about making the chambers hospitable, scattering fresh rushes and herbs upon the floors, lighting fires in each chilly room, and unpacking her wardrobe for the next week. Katherine passed by Maria de Salinas and two other ladies, the sisters Isabel and Blanca de Vargas, lifting what would be her wedding attire reverently from a chest with the crowned pomegranate engraved upon its lid. The gown was made of plush white velvet, trimmed at its cuffs, hem, and low, square neckline with golden braid. The kirtle was white and gold brocade, embroidered with pearls, all of which were nearly an inch in diameter and very costly. Smaller pearls trimmed the white satin coif that would cover her hair, which had long lappets embellished with goldsmith's work. She would wear more strings of pearls around her neck and slung across her bodice, and even the broad-toed, golden slippers for her feet were encrusted with gemstones. Under the gown, she would wear a Spanish farthingale. This cone-shaped underskirt, constructed of numerous concentric hoops stiffened with reeds, would fasten around Katherine's hips under her kirtle and help the heavy skirt of her gown maintain its belled shape. She noticed several of her English ladies, the skirts of their gowns allowed to hang naturally, giving her wedding ensemble curious looks.  
Katherine had attempted to make friendly overtures to her English ladies, though it was no easy task, with Katherine knowing no English and only passable French. She was further hindered by the dismaying fact that, even as she made efforts to forge a bond of friendship with the Englishwomen now serving her, her Spanish ladies, taking their cue from the ever-disapproving Doña Elvira, did their level best to snub the newcomers. Katherine had even found herself having occasion to speak sharply to an unusually sullen Maria de Salinas, who seemed to take it as a personal affront that Katherine invited the English ladies to take part in activities that Maria herself felt were her duties alone, such as lacing the princess's stays or combing her long hair before bed. Doña Elvira, for her part, went about with her nose in the air, barking reproofs in heavily accented Latin at the nonplussed newcomers, most of whom only knew English and French and therefore came to be quite afraid of the duenna and avoided her company at all costs. Still, Katherine persevered, and by the time her royal party had reached Lambeth had managed to captivate the loyalty and fondness of all her English ladies, and especially that of one of them in particular: Margaret Pole.  
Born Margaret Plantagenet, Lady Pole was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth through her father, George, Duke of Clarence, younger brother to the queen's father Edward IV. She was thirteen years Katherine's senior and already married with several children. Though not beautiful, she had a handsome face, statuesque build, and bright, black eyes that shone like onyx buttons. Because she was of royal birth, she was quite well-educated and therefore one of a few of Katherine's servants with whom she could converse comfortably in Latin. Margaret had taken it upon herself to begin teaching the princess English, and as she entered the room where Katherine sat, still admiring her wedding dress and curtsied to her, Katherine was able to greet her in that language.  
"Good afternoon, Lady Pole. Will you come with me to the chapel before supper? I would like to pray and give thanks for a smooth journey."  
"Certainly, Your Highness," replied Margaret, who for her part had begun to see the fresh-faced princess as something of a younger sister, despite their differences in rank. It was impossible not to like Katherine, who was so modest and pious, despite how atrociously her Spanish women behaved. Margaret, a devout Catholic herself, was pleased that England would one day have such a virtuous queen.  
As she and Lady Pole exited the outermost chamber of her rooms at Lambeth Palace, Katherine noticed Maria de Salinas looking at her with a wounded expression. "Maria, would you accompany us as well?" she asked her friend in rapid Spanish.  
Immediately, Maria passed the jeweled cap she had been holding to Isabel de Vargas and leapt nimbly to her feet.  
The three women made their way in silence from the room and through the winding corridors and spacious galleries of the palace, finally arriving at its small chapel. Normally, Katherine would only come to the chapel to hear mass, and would do all her private praying at her ornate prayer desk, which had traveled with her from Spain. However, between being too ill to get out of bed nearly the whole time she was at sea and spending long hours in her litter traveling through England, she felt that her prayers had been quite neglected. She had been very pleased to discover that, though her studies had come to an end, Father Geraldini, her former tutor, would be staying on in her household in the capacity of confessor. She promised herself that she would do the rather unpleasant, but necessary, task of unburdening all her many sins of the past few months to him later on, but now, she just wanted to praise God, Mother Mary, and all the saints for her safe arrival in London and for sending her the most gentle and pleasant husband in the person of Arthur Tudor.  
She had been kneeling for a long time in the dim, quiet chapel, flanked on either side by Margaret and Maria, each of their dark heads bowed in prayerful silence, when a soft rustling alerted Katherine to the presence of another person sharing the space with them. Looking up, she was so surprised to see the eager face of Henry, Duke of York, that she gasped and nearly cried out.  
the young prince's mouth twitched as if he might laugh at her extreme reaction, but remembering she was a princess and he was in a chapel (and not wanting her to think him childish), Henry quickly rearranged his features into a mask of perfect chivlalry and bowed to her, doffing his cap extravagantly.  
“ begging your pardon, Madame,” the prince began, “my father the king has instructed me to escort you to supper in the great hall, where as you know he, the queen my mother, and my brother the Prince of Wales will be joining us for food and dancing. I looked for you in your chambers, but your nurse told me you were here. I regret to disturb your prayers, but it is nearly time for the first course to be brought out."  
Katherine rose briskly and curtsied to the handsome, robust young prince, whom she had taken quite a liking to, though she was sure that among his friends and peers he was quite the cheeky scamp. "Do not feel sorry, my lord Henry." She rubbed her stomach, smiling slightly. "I will be glad to sup with you and your family, and I have heard that English fare is excellent." Of course, Arthur will also be there, she added to herself. I wonder if he is as anxious to lay eyes on me as I have been to see him once more. And what of the queen? she mused. Would Elizabeth be as gentle and kindly as she had seemed from her correspondence with Katherine's mother Queen Isabel? Or would she be discomfited by the idea of another royal lady joining her court and diverting some of her eldest son's attention from herself?  
Though these questions instilled a since of deep foreboding in Katherine, she knew there was nothing for it but to forge bravely ahead and try to make the best impression possible on the English queen. Therefore, she straightened her back, smoothed her skirts, and made to leave the peaceful solitude of the chapel. Followed by Maria de Salinas and Margaret Pole, who both bestowed the prince with a curtsy and a smile, she found herself once again being led by the irrepressible Duke of York further down her path to the royal house of Tudor.


	6. A Royal Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, readers. Thanks so much for everyone who has taken time to follow my KofA story up to this point. I know it is a slow build, but I promise some action is coming your way in the next few chapters. As always, comments are welcome. —VBC

1501  
Katherine was quite taken aback at her reception in the great hall of Lambeth Palace. Though in Spain she had always been given the respect due a royal lady, she had been the youngest of her parents' children and therefore the most junior member of the ruling family. It occurred to her now, as all the servants, her ladies-in-waiting, and members of the king and queen's entourages rose from their seats and made obeisances to her, that here, in England, she would be of very high status indeed. There were only two women in the entire country who would take precedence over her: the queen herself and King Henry's own mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. This realization filled Katherine with a peculiar mixture of fear and exhilaration. What could she do with the power that would soon be hers? Perhaps, she thought, she would found a school for high-born children at whichever palace became her and Arthur's seat while Prince and Princess of Wales. Noblemen could send their children there to be educated by the best scholars Katherine could recruit to the cause, and, hopefully, her own children could also be educated there when they became of an age. Surely, this would not only satisfy her own passionate interest in education, but would also gain her favor in the eyes of the English people, who would see her as a thoughtful and beneficent princess.  
So caught up in this flight of fancy was Katherine that she barely noticed Maria and Margaret detaching herself from her side; nor did she register the liveried manservant, who draped a starched linen napkin over her shoulder and handed her a cloth-wrapped manchet loaf. In fact, it wasn't until the Duke of York, seated beside her, cleared his throat meaningfully that she came out of her reverie and glanced around.  
She was seated at the high table on the dais in the middle of the hall. All around her, at the lower tables, sat the nobler members of her household, as well as those members of the court who had accompanied the royal family to meet her. As of yet, the first course of the meal had not been brought out, but already Katherine could see that everyone at the high table, including herself, had by their silver trencher a knife, spoon, manchet loaf, and a crystal goblet filled with deep red wine.  
Besides Katherine herself, there were six people seated at the table. At its head was King Henry, surveying her, as he always seemed to be, with that same calculating look. At his right hand sat Arthur, richly attired in an emerald satin doublet and black hose, slashed at their padded calves to reveal the cloth-of-gold lining beneath. His arresting gray eyes immediately sought out Katherine's, their lingering look conveying what felt to her like a thousand words' worth of affection. She could not gaze at him for too long, however, because her eyes were drawn quickly to the person seated at the king's left hand, who was smiling at her graciously.  
Even seated, it was plain to Katherine that Queen Elizabeth was quite tall. She had no doubt that standing, the queen would tower a head or more above herself. She wore an elegant gown of icy pink velvet, open at the waist to reveal a satin kirtle that matched its silver oversleeves perfectly. Though the gown was unadorned, besides a simple girdle chain of silver and pearls with only an engraved pomander suspended from its end, Katherine felt that its simplicity served only to enhance the queen's beauty. And she was beautiful! Katherine had only ever seen one woman whom she thought could hold a candle to Elizabeth of York, and that was her own mother; but where Isabel of Castille was voluptuous, with a serene, motherly expression, this queen, despite her thirty-five years, had the figure of a nymph, with a heart-shaped face from which shone a pair of heavy-lidded, cobalt blue eyes fringed by luxuriant black lashes. Her hair was entirely hidden beneath a headdress with a pointed silhouette that put Katherine in mind of a gabled roof, with a short veil hanging down in back. She found it very attractive, especially when compared to the impractical mantillas and broad-brimmed hats she was used to seeing Spanish women wear. The queen seemed to exude grace and elegance.  
"Hello, Princess Katherine. we are so glad to welcome you to England." When Elizabeth spoke, it was in stilted French, and Katherine, who had never caught on to the language as well as she had Latin, struggled to reply.  
"I thank you, Your Grace, for allowing me to become part of your family, and for seeing me so well taken care of while I await the upcoming marriage ceremony."  
Arthur turned to his mother and beamed. "You see, Mother? Isn't she just as I told you—the most modest and gentle of noble ladies?" His cheeks, which were somewhat paler than Katherine had remembered, flushed rather blotchily, and she wondered if he was simply overheated or had already imbibed some of the wine.  
"She does seem a humble girl. Her parents must be quite proud of raising such a self-effacing child," commented the person seated to arthur’s left. Craning her neck slightly, Katherine beheld a tiny, birdlike old woman whom she assumed to be Margaret Beaufort. The countess sat forward on her carved wooden chair, her dark eyes—so much like her son, the king's—sweeping over Katherine's face. "Well, Arthur, my boy, you must feel lucky to have been given such a lovely wife."  
"And I am, grandmother," the prince assured her, reaching across the table and patting Katherine's hand where it lay next to her silverware. She thrilled to his touch but couldn't help noticing that his hand was very warm indeed, almost burning hot. She worried that he may have caught cold during the time they had been apart, when he and the king had ridden to London in the cold on horseback. But, she assured herself, he has no other outward signs of illness, and surely he would not be in such a good humor if he had been feeling poorly. She hoped so, at any rate.  
"I, for one, will be happy to have another girl around to be my friend," said the person on the other side of Prince Henry from Katherine. Glancing in the direction from whence the voice had come, Katherine saw a girl, maybe three or four years her junior, though she was already Katherine's height and size, and quite nearly as developed. Katherine recognized her at once as a child of King Henry and the queen, though where the two princes favored their mother in appearance, this girl was her father's daughter in every way, with a thatch of dark curls contained by only a simple fillet across her brow, a long, pale face, and a wily, measuring expression. Katherine tried to remember the family tree of the Tudors her parents had shown her after her betrothal to the Prince of Wales. She knew that Elizabeth had born Arthur in the autumn of The year of our Lord 1486, just over a year after Henry had seized the throne; and she knew that the Duke of York had been born in the summer of 1491; but there had been a daughter born between them, in 1489, she thought. What had been her name?  
"You must be Princess Margaret," Katherine said, turning toward the girl.  
"I am she," said Margaret, "though soon, I hope to be a queen. Queen Margaret of Scots."  
"You are too young to be married," protested the Countess of Richmond, whom Katherine assumed to be Margaret's namesake. "I was married to your grandfather Edmund Tudor at twelve, and bore your father at thirteen. I was just a slip of a girl, and the pregnancy and birth were devastating to my young body. I never brought another child into this world. Would you invite such a fate upon yourself, child, when you could spend your last few years as a maid running about freely in the gardens and hunting with your brothers, as you are so often wont to do? You are already betrothed to the Scottish king—there is no rush! Wait until you are of a decent age to be wed, like Princess Katherine has."  
"But I am not a slip," argued Margaret, tossing her curls and puffing out her small bosom. "I am a big, strong girl and will bear big, lusty sons to the king of Scots." Katherine had a feeling the two Margarets were gearing up for an argument that was not new and could drag on for hours. She was grateful to the king when he raised his hand for silence.  
"Margaret, you must behave more decorously, lest the princess think us all savages and write her parents to remove her from our court immediately," he cautioned, though Katherine noticed a surprising tenderness in his eyes when he gazed upon his firstborn daughter that he did not reserve for either of his sons. It had always been strange to Katherine how, though male children were considered so much more valuable, some fathers kept a certain, special place in their hearts only for their daughters. Not so with King Ferdinand, she mused, for, though her father treated all his children justly and kindly, poor Juan had always been the pride of his life. It had nearly broken Ferdinand when his only son had perished.  
"Look, sir," exclaimed the Duke of York, who was fidgeting in his seat, obviously annoyed that no one had spoken to him yet. "They are bringing out the first course!"  
Even in Spain, Catherine had had rare occasion to take part in such a sumptuous repast. This meal rivaled even the wedding feast of her brother Juan in its grandeur. Servants thronged among the tables, bearing platters of roast capon, oysters and prawns, salmon salad with onion and violets, whitefish fried in butter, roasted asparagus in a fragrant sauce, loins of venison, leg of mutton, several different kinds of fowl, and even a whole peacock, roasted on a spit and redressed in its brilliant plumage. Katherine was hard put to sample only a little of each, as was polite, for every dish offered to her was so beautifully presented and smelled so delicious, she would have lliked to eat them all up. She was gratified to see the entire royal family, even the women, tucking in with delight. She noticed that Arthur seemed to have a particular liking for the whitefish, and made a note to have it prepared for him often by the cooks in their employ once they were allotted their own palace and royal household. As more and more dishes continued to pour forth from the kitchens, the English royals kept up a stream of lively conversation, and as Katherine's wine glass was refilled again and again, she found herself emboldened to take part in it.  
"So, my dearest spouse, is there anything you find yourself wanting for now that you are in London?" asked Arthur, between mouthfuls.  
"Oh, no, My Lord, all my needs have been well met," said Katherine, "though, after seeing how lovely my English ladies look, garbed in the English fashion, I wonder if I may be permitted to purchase some English gowns of my own, if it can be done."  
The king interrupted. "I myself think it proper for you to begin attiring yourself in English fashion, Princess Katherine, as well as learning our language."  
"I have already employed Lady Pol to that end, Your Grace," Katherine replied, glad that she could show her soon-to-be father-in-law that she was eager to embrace the customs and culture of her adoptive Country.  
"Madam," asked Arthur of the queen, who had been rather reticent throughout the meal, though she smiled indulgently at her children's antics, "could your tailors fix up a pretty wardrobe of English gowns for my Katherine?"  
"And perhaps some headdresses like your own?" put in Katherine, less intimidated by Elizabeth now that the wine was causing her head to become a touch light and fuzzy.  
"They are called gable hoods," Prince Henry whispered to her behind his napkin. Of all of Arthur's relatives, Katherine liked him the most, for he had shown himself the most friendly and eager to help her.  
"Of course," said the queen in her halting French. "I will instruct them to begin work on them tomorrow."  
Just then, another horde of servants approached, bearing dishes and platters of cheeses, wafers, and candied fruits. Katherine's goblet was refilled once more, but instead of the chilled red wine she had expected, she smelled the subtly sweet aroma of hippocras. Prince Henry passed her a dish of what looked like macerated fruit topped with a cloud of stiff cream and dusted with sugar.  
"What is it?" asked Katherine, poking at the topping experimentally with her spoon. It shivered, but did not give.  
"It's called 'a dishful of snow'," explained Arthur. "It's made up of strawberries seethed in rosewater syrup, crushed and folded into double cream. It is my brother's and my favorite dish to finish supper with."  
"Would you like to try it?" asked the younger prince eagerly. His ears were quite red, and he nervously brushed crumbs from the front of his crimson silk doublet.  
Katherine spooned a small amount of the "snow" onto her trencher to please the princes, though, all told, she was quite exhausted, very full, and rather drunk. After one mouthful, however, she was glad she had. It was one of the best things she had ever tasted.  
"I cannot abide sweet food," remarked Princess Margaret, whom Katherine liked for the same reason she enjoyed Maria de Salinas' company—she always said what was on her mind.  
Prince Henry sat up straighter in his seat, jaw set, and it appeared that he was going to launch into a heated protestation against his sister's distaste for sweetmeats, when the whole royal party was silenced by the sound of Arthur emitting an enormous, wheezing cough into his napkin. Everybody froze. The cough came again, wracking Arthur's slim body, and he paused to wipe his lips before drawing the napkin away. Looking at the square of white cloth, Katherine was aghast to see it stained with something blackish and revolting.  
"My son, are you all right?" For the first time that evening, Katherine saw the queen's placid expression waver, replaced by a look of alarm.  
"I am fine, Mother—it was simply a cough." Arthur brushed aside his mother's hand as she attempted to touch his pallid face. "You mustn't worry yourself so. I think I will retire for the night, though, so that it does not become something worse."  
Katherine watched, perturbed, as Arthur rose hurriedly from his chair and called upon a manservant to attend him. "I will see you all on the morrow," he promised his family. Katherine had thought herself quite forgotten, but at the last minute, Arthur turned to her.  
Bending low so as to be at her eye-level, he whispered, "It has pleased me greatly to see you once again, my sweet Katherine. I will visit you again before we are wed." As he had done the last time they parted, Arthur pressed his lips to her hand and left.  
Katherine's eyes followed Arthur as he departed, just as they had done at Plymouth nearly a week before. Just as at Plymouth, she fell, exhausted, into a great tester bed later that night. Just as at Plymouth, she recalled to the forefront of her mind how Arthur's lips had felt against her hand; but unlike the kiss at Plymouth, she was not preoccupied by the ardent look in Arthur's eyes, nor the way his skin brushing hers had made her heart skip a beat. Now, all she could think about was the fact that his lips, like the hand he had rested upon hers earlier at supper, were burning with feverish heat.


	7. Katherine in London

1501  
Katherine rose with the dawn on the morning of her debut in London. It had been several days since the feast at which she had been introduced to the royal family, and since then Katherine had spent her days taking English lessons from Lady Pole, hearing mass in the chapel, led by Father Geraldini, and embroidering a silk shirt with entwined A's and K's in blackwork, which she planned to present Arthur with on their wedding night two days hence. She had tried to put the anxiety she felt about Arthur's sickly appearance out of her mind, and by keeping herself busy had largely succeeded; but as Maria de Salinas plaited her hair into several shimmering, coppery braids and twisted them into a complex chignon at the back of her head and Doña Elvira tugged violently at the laces of her stays, she wondered whether her prince's health had been restored during their few days apart.  
Katherine and Doña Elvira had argued fiercely about how she should attire herself for this most significant of occasions. Doña Elvira had opined that Katherine should wear the most recognizably Spanish of her Spanish garb, elaborate jewelry, and an extravagantly long and flowing mantilla, all symbols of the wealth and majesty of her homeland. Katherine expressed that she would rather wear a simple gown and leave her hair uncovered to denote her chastity, modesty and humility for, she pointed out, the people would want to know about the character of the woman their prince was to marry, rather than her heritage.  
"Character is what makes a person and what determines whether there is a place for them in Heaven. God does not distinguish between a peasant and a prince when measuring the merit of their deeds," Katherine had quoted. "Is this not what you have always taught me, Doña Elvira, since I was a babe at your knee?"  
Doña Elvira was plainly incensed by having her own words used against her. "But Your Highness, surely you must realize that the people will be expecting you to be dressed in a manner befitting a princess of the realm! They will think you most unnatural if you appear underdressed at the head of your own royal procession!"  
"I will not be underdressed—just dressed in a manner that still allows the people to see my face. Which means, of course, no mantilla," Katherine replied patiently.  
Doña Elvira shook her head, her chins atremble. Katherine caught sight of Maria de Salinas, as well as several of her English ladies, attempting to conceal grins of malicious glee at the duenna's consternation.  
"You must at least wear a hat, to preserve your complexion," Doña Elvira finally conceded, realizing that their was no way she could impose her will upon Katherine any further than this.  
"Very well," Katherine sighed, tired of the confrontation and anxious to return to finishing the design on Arthur's shirt.  
For her procession through London, Katherine would wear a vibrant turquoise gown of very fine silk. Her golden girdle chain—the largest and most ornate one she owned—would be adorned with a jeweled pomander stuffed with fresh herbs, an ivory rosary, and Arthur's engraved locket. To stave off the cold winds gusting off the River Thames, she donned a maroon velvet mantle lined in pure white ermine. Around her neck she fastened a ruby-studded crucifix that rested low on her bosom, and over her fur-lined leather boots Margaret Pole strapped on a pair of high-heeled wooden chopins, which would serve the dual purpose of making her appear taller and keeping her skirt hem and train out of the wet sludge on the ground during the short trip across the palace courtyard to where a groom would already have her horse ready, decked out in its own painted saddle and golden trappings. Katherine would of course ride in an open chariot, pulled by the horse, so that she could be seen from all angles by the curious spectators she passed.  
"The royal family will not be taking part in this procession, as you know," Lady Pole advised her. "They will instead be looking on from a special viewing platform that the king had built for the occasion."  
Katherine knew this, and was glad of it, for it meant that she could get a good look at Arthur and assess his appearance for any further signs of weakening health.  
Katherine's attendants served her and her ladies a breakfast of ale, white bread, and thick slices of cold beef. Katherine ate little, her stomach tight with nerves. She had spent an inordinately long time at her prayer desk last night, humbly beseeching God to let the people gain a favorable impression of her. Eventually, Doña Elvira had insisted that she go to bed, lest she appear before her subjects for the first time with unsightly dark circles under her eyes. It won't matter now, for they will be unable to see my face at all, Katherine thought ruefully as her duenna tied a broad-brimmed hat beneath her chin. It reminded her unfavorably of a cardinal's hat, and she wished once more that her Spanish headgear was half as elegant as Queen Elizabeth's gable hood.  
As it turned out, Katherine had little time to bemoan her hat, because almost immediately, a liveried manservant entered the outer chamber of her rooms and bowed. "Your Highness, your horse and chariot are ready for you."  
Maria de Salinas, herself garbed in her finest gown of black silk over a massive farthingale, fell into step just behind Katherine. She would ride next to her mistress in the chariot, an arrangement that Katherine was grateful for. "You look perfect, My Lady. You will be adored by your subjects," Maria whispered encouragingly as Katherine's household made its winding way through the corridors of Lambeth Palace and out into the courtyard, which was lit up by pools of watery winter sunshine. There, they arranged themselves according to rank. Katherine and her most senior ladies—the ones of noblest birth—would ride at the head of the procession in chariots, while the lower-ranking ladies and maids of honor would sit side-saddle on horses. The lowliest servants and attendants would travel on foot. Some of them carried castanets and trumpets, others pennants emblazoned with the crowned pomegranate. They would announce her presence to each street and market square before she had even arrived.  
Katherine allowed a groom to help her into the chariot, which was to be pulled by a handsome black palfrey. Maria stepped in behind her. Her heart beat hard with excitement. How would London receive her? Almost before she realized it, the rest of the procession had formed behind her. The groom lashed her horse, and it began to trot, leading her out of the courtyard at Lambeth and into the cramped streets of the city beyond.  
Katherine had not expected to see spectators so soon after embarking, and yet, as her train made its winding way down the first muddy lanes, people materialized on both sides of her. They huddled under the awnings of florists' shops, cobbler's shops, butcher's shops, apothecaries, smithies, bakeries, and more. The applause was a mere smattering at first, then a constant stream. By the time they had been thronging through the streets for half an hour, it had grown to a steady roar. Children threw bouquets of flowers in her direction. Women and men alike chanted her name. As they had done at Plymouth, some of the English pointed and gaped at her Moorish servants. Others gave her Spanish ladies' gowns, with their short trains and dramatically flared skirts curious or even distasteful looks. Overall, however, the attitude of the crowd was one of jubilation. They congested the streets, making it hard for the horses to take even a few steps. Katherine watched the sun climb in the cloudless sky as she smiled until her cheeks hurt and waved until her arms felt numb. Frigid blasts of wind continued to assault her, penetrating the layers of extra petticoats she wore and causing her to shiver violently. She pulled her cloak more securely around herself, and as she did so, the procession turned a corner. When Katherine looked up, the first thing she saw was the face of Arthur Tudor, turned downwards toward her from a massive wooden platform, draped in scarlet fabric and rising high above the heads of the surrounding people—and even the horses and chariots.  
He looked radiant in a black short gown over a crimson velvet doublet embroidered with gold thread forming the outlines of roses, the symbol of the noble house of Lancaster from which King Henry claimed descent. His auburn hair fell in thick waves around his ears, and his smile, warm and genuine where his father's was cold, showed many pearl-white teeth. He looked every inch the prince—healthy, robust, and overjoyed as he beheld his wife to be. Flanking him, seated in grand, carved chairs, reclined his father and mother, he grandly attired in silken hose and a doublet lined in sable, she resplendent in tawny velvet. Further back sat the Countess of Richmond, Princess Margaret, and Prince Henry, who, grinning mischievously, nudged his sister and pointed at Katherine's strange hat. Though she could not hear him over the fanfare and the roar of the crowd, Katherine saw the Duke of York's mouth form the words "It looks like a cardinal's hat." She smiled at him and waved, seeing him blush when he noticed her looking. What a little scoundrel, she thought indulgently. Then, the horses started to walk again, and Katherine's chariot bumped and jostled along the road, leaving the royal party behind.  
It was late afternoon when Katherine and her retinue returned to Lambeth. The royal family were already there, and she once again found herself at high table with them, enjoying a sumptuous meal. This time, there was another occupant at the table with them: a smallish, oily, foul little man whom Katherine could not help but dislike on sight. He smiled at her obsequiously, a smile that showed far too many yellowing teeth and did not reach his cold, gray eyes.  
"Princess Katherine, this is your father's ambassador, Doctor Rodrigo de Puebla," announced King Henry in his brusque fashion.  
"Greetings, Your Highnesse," said Puebla silkily, bowing to her with measured politeness. It took all of Katherine's strength not to cringe away as he pressed his cold lips to her hand. His touch made her skin crawl.  
"Of course," said the Spanish ambassador, after reseating himself, "this is not the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting you, Princess Katherine—though you were known as Enfanta Catalina at that time. You were the most beautiful and well-behaved two-year-old, as I remember, with your golden curls and big blue eyes, seated on Her Grace the Queen's lap. That was when I was in Spain arranging your marriage to the Prince of Wales."  
Katherine could not bring herself to say anything. The sight of Puebla tearing into a joint of rabbit with his bare, yellow-nailed hands, disregarding utterly the fork and knife next to his trencher, and gobbling with evident pleasure, was making her quite sick. Without really thinking about it, she reached out for the hand of Arthur, who sat beside her, and grasped it desperately beneath the pristine linen tablecloth.  
To Katherine’s delight, Arthur did not hesitate to grip her hand reassuringly. Turning to Puebla, he said, "I am most grateful to you, sir, for helping to ensure that this marriage will take place, as I am sure that having Her Highness Katherine as a wife will make me the happiest prince in Christendom."  
"It was nothing, Your Highness," purred Puebla, now devouring a hunk of pork cooked in an onion glaze, licking his fingers between bites. Katherine's stomach turned at the sight of his long, abnormally purplish tongue.  
So odious did she find the ambassador Puebla that Katherine soon excused herself, pleading exhaustion from the long day. Arthur looked saddened to see her go, but was cheered when she reminded him, in a low voice, that in less than two days, she would be his wife and consort. He covered her hands in kisses, and she lay awake that night, imagining with a queer mixture of guilt and excitement the way his lips might feel on her own.  
***  
It was nearly midnight when Dr Puebla knocked smartly at the king's library door. Henry stood from his magnificent desk and strode through the rows of shelves, piled with illuminated manuscripts, and ushered in the ambassador, who held in one of his small, spidery hands a lit taper of good bee's wax in a stout candlestick.  
"Thank you for joining me, Doctor," said the king, his voice unusually low as he snapped the heavy door shut behind the Spaniard and retreated back to his desk.  
Puebla bowed. "It is, as always, a pleasure to serve Your Grace," he said, seating himself across the expanse of wood, which was scattered with books, letters from foreign kings and dignitaries, an inkwell, and several bottles of ink.  
Henry grimaced. He found Puebla as loathsome as he imagined the princess Katherine had. He had not failed to notice her averting her gaze from the uncouth little man, and knew that only something truly distasteful could distract her from gazing moon-faced at Arthur. Henry drummed his fingers upon the desktop, a nervous habit he had never quite been able to break. Arthur had never been a sickly boy. He and Elizabeth—that beautiful creature, the only woman who had ever been able to get the better of him—had always counted themselves lucky in the fact that their firstborn was so strong and vital. Why, then, was Arthur now suddenly complaining of chills, headaches, and coughing up vile fluid? Henry, who during the many trials of his extraordinary life had had little patience for the idea of a higher power, even found himself praying of late—praying for his son and heir's speedy recovery. He needed grandchildren—his dynasty needed them. By God, England needed them!  
"Your Grace?" prompted Puebla in his oily purr, "Is there something that I can help you with?"  
"Yes," said the king, snapping back to reality. "Yes, in fact, I do require your assistance with a matter of some delicacy."  
"Anything Your Grace needs, I am here to provide," assured Puebla, his lizard's tongue flicking across his thin mouth.  
"You are aware, I am sure, that King Ferdinand of Aragon has paid one hundred thousand ducats, half the Princess Katherine's dowry, to us in advance of her coming to England," the King said quietly.  
"Yes Your Grace."  
"And you are also aware that the princess is in possession of the other half, which is in the form of a quantity of costly plate and antique jewelry?"  
"Yes, Your Grace."  
"Well, you see, Doctor, plate and jewels are fine treasure indeed, but what England needs—what we need—is not pretty baubles, but gold and silver coins. Yet, King Ferdinand expects the princess to keep these treasures until such a time as he himself thinks it prudent to have her turn them over to me. That eliminates the option of my selling the items at my leisure."  
"My master, the King of Aragon, is a most ... pragmatic man," commented Puebla. A Castillean by birth, he had a natural inclination to serve Queen Isabel, but that instinct did not extend to her husband, whom he personally thought of as a self-serving upstart, not above manipulating and abusing his family and friends to preserve his power. Much like this king, Puebla privately mused. But the princess Katherine is by all accounts a most godly and biddable girl. Surely, Your Grace could prevail on her notion of biblical devotion to her husband's family and impel her to turn over the plate without her father's permission?"  
"I could, were my son Arthur more like me in temperament. As it is, he is a scrupulous boy and would never put his wife in a position to incur her father's displeasure. There is a great deal of his mother in him," finished the king, who was inwardly grateful that the next king of England would be a noble and generous soul, for he knew himself to be a miser and a schemer. The only thing he had God and not himself to thank for, in his mind, was the blessing of a gentle wife and a brood of high-minded children. The rest of his worldlly comforts, he himself took credit for, God be damned.  
"So," continued Henry VII, resuming his restless drumming upon the surface of his desk, "what I need you to do, Doctor, is to come up with a scheme to force the princess to use the plate in some way or another, so that she is incapable of presenting the goods to me in their current, unused condition. That way, I may request their value in coin from the King of Spain."  
"I understand, Your Grace—a brilliant plan," said Puebla, rubbing his ugly hands together. "I will see what I can do."  
"Good man," said the king, reclining in his chair. "And now, Doctor, I ask that you leave me for a space. I would like to read from my Book of Hours."


	8. The Morning of the Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, readers! I know, I know—Katherine was supposed to get married in this chapter, right? I thought so too, but needed to take a moment to illuminate some of the behind-the-scenes string-pulling going on while our favorite Spanish-not-Spanish heroine is still trying to get her footing. At any rate, those true history buffs among you will realize the significance of the dialogue in this chapter, but don't get too comfortable with what you think it means for KofA's story. *Winks roguishly* *Removes mysterious writer hat* Anyway, feel free as always to comment, and expect chapter 9 sooner than later. —VBC 💋💋💋💋

1501  
The morning of the wedding of Enfanta Catalina of Aragon to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales dawned cold and overcast. As they had done the day before, fierce wintry winds blasted through London, causing beggars to huddle in doorways and even the city's gangs of homeless dogs to retreat to the warmest shelters they could find. Even in these conditions, however, townspeople poured forth from their homes and businesses in a steady stream, all of them headed in the direction of the great wooden platform on which the royal family had sat while presiding over Princess Katherine's official entrance into London. The chairs had been removed and replaced with a portable altar, its deep blue silk frontal embroidered with golden suns and silver moons, at which the Prince and Princess would kneel to recite their vows. The crowd surged and jostled, each person present battling his or her neighbor to get a better vantage point from which to see the royal marriage. They would stand here for hours with bated breath, awaiting the arrival of the ever-popular Prince Arthur and his bride-to-be, who herself had made a great impression on them, despite the peculiarity of her Spanish retinue. The people of England were preparing for the spectacle of the year, more exciting than even the goriest execution or the most merry revel.  
Prince Henry was anoyed. His father had invited Henry and his older siblings, and even little five-year-old Mary, to join him and the queen in his royal apartments for breakfast. Henry imagined that his father was merely gathering the children together to warn them to comport themselves in a manner befitting their royal status, and he was preparing himself for a dull lecture on the importance of them cutting a good figure as the scions of a new dynasty when he entered his father's privy chamber.  
Henry's relationship with his brother had never been quite as close as he imagined that of other siblings to be. In truth, Henry felt much more of an afinity for his sister Margaret, who never put on airs and shared his impetuous spirit and love of dancing and merriment. Arthur was the heir, the much-lauded firstborn son who was always presented to foreign ambassadors and accompanied their father on state business. This had, to Henry's mind, instilled in him a deep-seated sense of his own place in the world. The immense pressure put upon him by the king to behave in a manner that would curry favor with the populace had caused him to become studious, chivalrous, and morally erect; but it had also made him grave and formal and had aged him far beyond his fifteen years. Henry and Margaret, however, remained largely hidden from the public eye, shut up in Richmond Palace—she because she was a girl, and he because (and Henry knew this for a fact) he was his father's spare son. If Arthur were to die, then Henry would take his place, and therefore it was imperative to keep Henry far away from the teeming streets of London where the air was foul and disease rampant. Though Henry was an energetic boy, at his happiest when jousting, riding his horse, practicing falconry or fencing with his longtime friend Charles Brandon, he rarely was allowed to indulge in those activities because his father thought them dangerous. Because of this, Henry envied Arthur, who alone of his siblings had permission to hunt, hawk, dance and feast alongside their father to his heart's content.  
Nevertheless, Henry loved his gentle and charitable brother, and that was why a small gasp escaped his lips when the door to his father's privy chamber swung open and revealed Arthur's pale, drawn, and feverish face. The overall mood of his family was gloomy. His formidable grandmother Margaret Beaufort entertained Mary, slicing her cold meat and helping her to handle her silverware, all while conversing with her on the trivial matters of the nursery that was still Mary's home, all, Henry guessed, in an attempt to distract the little princess from her parents' evident misery. The queen wrung her hands, and Henry was startled to see his father gazing beseechingly upward, as if looking to God for deliverance from some great calamity. His sister Margaret,for her part, kept glancing in Arthur's direction and then looking away quickly. Though she was no closer to Arthur than Henry was, she still feared for him.  
"Good morning, sir," said Henry to his father, sliding into the only unoccupied chair at table, between his mother and brother. "Good morning, madam."  
"Good morning, son," said the king distractedly. "Elizabeth, what do the physicians say?"  
"They tell me it is a malady of the lungs, which he must have caught while journeying back to London from Plymouth."  
"God's teeth!" erupted the king so suddenly, that Henry, Margaret, ven Arthur, who slumped in a sickly stupor, jumped in their seats. "I should have gone alone to meet the wench—I should have known that my plans would be waylaid by some misfortune. My path to securing the throne has always been dogged by evils such as these—first the Earl of Lincoln, then the pretenders Simnel and Warbeck, and now this!" he finished, sinking back in his chair and resuming his previous stance of looking up to the ceiling, though Henry noticed that this time, rather than gazing to the heavens with a look of melancholy, he now glowered, as though he could frighten God into bending to his will, as he had frightened so many others.  
Henry knew who Simnel and Warbeck were, as well as the Earl of Lincoln. Lincoln had been the last nobleman still loyal to the evil, hunchbacked Richard III, whom his father had deposed. He had led a short-lived but bloody rebellion which the king had been obliged to crush before he could truly feel safe on his throne. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck were both impostors—the former claiming to be the current Earl of Warwick, Richard III's nephew—a dull-witted boy whom King Henry had actually imprisoned in the Tower of London; and Warbeck had claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, the son of King Edward IV whom everybody was certain that Richard III had had murdered during his own reign. Eventually, Henry's father had been able to wring confessions out of Warbeck and Simnel, and was content to pardon them both. Warbeck, however, had tried to escape the king's clutches twice, and so had been executed. Simnel, as far as the younger Henry knew, still worked as a servant in one of his father's palaces.  
Pretenders and rebels were easy enough to be rid of, Henry knew; but sickness was an intangible enemy which mere physical mite could not prevail against. He wondered how his father would deal with this new threat.  
***  
There is no use in self-pity, nor in pleading with a wrathful God, realized King Henry VII. The wedding must go on at all costs, and Arthur must simply get through it, as he himself had gotten through the years of his own exile, where more formidable foes than a mere cold had kept him constantly within a hair's breadth of the Devil's door.  
The king looked at his eldest son who, although florid with heat, shivered in his doublet, his teeth chattering so violently that he was unable to consume any of the good fare on the trencher before him. "Arthur," he said, "I don't care how you do it, but you must behave as if there is nothing wrong with you at your wedding ceremony today. The whole of London will be observing you, and their will be panic if you are suspected to be ill."  
"But sir," interjected the queen, her beautiful face pale and pinched with anxiety, "what if the stress of the day only worsens his condition?"  
"Mother," said Arthur, hoarsely, "I will be fine. I have been betrothed to Katherine since I was a babe in arms. I cannot allow a passing illness divert me from the path God has intended for me to follow. It is mete that I should marry her this day."  
"You are a besotted boy," said the queen, hotly. If there was one thing King Henry disliked about his wife, it was her tendency to be irrational and oversensitive when it came to her children, a trait that he suspected she had inherited from her beautiful but temperamental mother, Elizabeth Woodville.  
"Much good a pretty wench will do you when you are a corpse in your grave," Elizabeth continued passionately, spots of livid color appearing on her pallid cheeks.  
"Enough, dear wife," said the king bracingly, his wife being the only living creature whose outbursts of emotion he had patience for. "Perhaps Arthur can take strength from his love for his little wife to get him through his nuptials." For Elizabeth's sake, he forced one of his infrequent, twisted smiles, all the while knowing that no amount of love could heal his son's malady. To that end, he continued, "Arthur, I do not wish you to bed the princess tonight."  
The Countess of Richmond, always a very pious and conservative woman, looked alarmed and embarrassed, as she often was by her son's crassness.She swept little Mary up in her arms and vacated the room hurriedly. King Henry saw his younger children blush, but his wife, for her part, looked inclined to agree with him. Arthur, for his part, sat up a little in his chair, his eyes, ringed by purplish shadows, showing surprise and even dismay.  
"Sir, why should I not bed the princess, who will be my wife this day?" he asked, a little indignation managing to creep into his cracked voice.  
"Because," said the king, slightly heartened by the fact that his son was evidently not so ill as to lose his lustful appetites, "you are still very young. I was hesitant for you to have carnal relations with the princess to begin with, but now that your health is compromised, I think it safest that you do abstain from the marital act until you are at least healthy again."  
"But, sir, there is supposed to be a public bedding ceremony tonight, to ensure that my marriage to Katherine is consummated. You told me King Ferdinand requested it and has instructed Dr Puebla to be one of those in attendance. Will Katherine's father not be displeased if that arrangement is changed for any reason?"  
"Your father only agreed for you and the princess to be publically put to bed together," Queen Elizabeth explained. "No one will be staying to observe the actual act taking place—he and I both find the idea of it lewd and unnecessary. All you must do is appear to desire her—"  
"I do desire her!"  
"—and act as though you made good sport together the next morning," the queen finished smoothly.  
"I only advise you to avoid consummating your marriage for your own good, my son," said the king. "Katherine's own brother—her father's only son—died from too much indulgence in the marriage bed, and he was in perfect health. The simple lusts of a young man nearly your own age cost Ferdinand his heir and the stability of his dynasty. I would not have the same thing happen here in England."  
"But if Katherine and I were allowed to sleep together, I could have my own heirs as soon as a year from now," wheedled Arthur. He opened his mouth to continue, but rushed to cover it with a handkerchief as he was seized with a bout of wrenching, wet coughs.  
"I think I have made my point well enough, Arthur," said the king dispassionately. "You will not consummate your marriage to the princess. Do so, and you shall incur my wrath. Only when you are entirely recovered may you crave my permission to make a true wife of her. Am I understood"  
Arthur favored his father with an uncharacteristically mulish look, but subsided in the face of King Henry's stony glare. "Yes, Your Grace," he sai."  
"Now," said King Henry, "All of you, go make yourselves ready for the wedding. Each of you is a Tudor, and even in the face of adversity, we Tudors persevere." He smiled wolfishly.


	9. The Night of the Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this one was a doozy! Hi, readers! I really struggled with how to present this chapter to you, and this was the first chapter that went through several transformations before being posted. All the same, I heartily enjoyed the creative process, and I really think we're getting to know Katherine from more angles than one here. Hope everyone enjoys! —VBC

1501  
Katherine lay back against plump, satin pillows. She savored the gingery taste of hippocras on her tongue as she marveled at the intricacy of the entwined Tudor roses and pomegranates painted on the bed's canopy, high above her head. She could hardly believe that this day had come and nearly gone as quickly as it had. She had woken up a former princess of Spain, an unwed girl in a foreign land, with no relations keeping her company; but, in a matter of hours, that had all changed. Now, she was a princess again, albeit of England. She was a wife—the wife of Arthur. She was a member of the royal house of Tudor. She had fulfilled her parents’ expectations of her, and fulfilled them well. Soon enough, she would provide Arthur with heirs, and even suspicious King Henry would hold her in high esteem for her part in securing his dynasty. She experienced a rare moment of pure self-satisfaction. Not even when the people of London were cheering her name so loudly her head pounded had she felt so triumphant.  
In a flash, Katherine relived the events of the day. She had been surprised, upon being gently woken early that morning, to find herself looking up not into Doña Elvira's stern face, but the handsome, heart-shaped face of Maria de Salinas. Maria had smiled brilliantly down at her. "Good morning, My Lady," she had murmured in a singsong voice.  
Katherine had bounded out of bed, smiling broadly before she had even woken fully. "Maria," she had squealed girlishly, and her best friend had hugged her closely in a rare moment of informality. They only broke apart when Blanca de Vargas tiptoed in from the outer chamber where the maids of honor slept, a crisp, white linen chemise with heavily embroidered cuffs draped carefully over her arms.  
"Your Highness, Doña Elvira says that you must break your fast this instant, as there is precious time to prepare you for your wedding."  
Katherine of course did not feel at all like eating, but she bolted down some bread and ale before submitting to the ministrations of Doña Elvira and the ladies-in-waiting. Her hair—still slightly damp from the thorough washing it had received the evening before and smelling heavily of rosewater—was once again parted into several tails which were then plaited and twisted together and fastened with many pearl-studded pins at the nape of her neck. With Maria's assistance, she slid into the linen undersmock Blanca had been holding. It had been bleached a blinding white, and except for its embroidered trim, the extremely fine weave of the fabric made it seem nearly transparent. Next, she pulled on a pair of equally bright white stockings, which were to be held up by a pair of fine silk garters, their ends embroidered with tiny pomegranates. She sucked in her stomach as far as possible while Maria was lacing her bodice, which came to a point in front slightly below her natural waistline. Then her extravagant farthingale was fastened around her hips, and over it her duenna smoothed her voluminous kirtle, its silken folds soft as cream against her skin. Her white wedding gown followed, and Katherine held up one shapely arm, enjoying the way the embellished cuff draped against her beringed fingers, making them appear longer and slimmer. Maria came up to her then, holding in her hands the elaborate coif with dangling lappets that would cover Katherine's hair. She sat on a stool as the Vargas sisters each slid a slipper onto her feet.  
Lastly, Doña Elvira approached with a silver coffer, in which Katherine knew her wedding jewelry had been stored. The duenna's eyes shone like black stars as she first fastened Katherine's heavy girdle chain around her waist, then clasped strand after strand of pearls around her neck.  
"My little enfanta is to be a little wife," murmured Doña Elvira in a slightly nasal voice. Katherine blushed, unaccustomed to such an unusual display of affection from her duenna.  
Maria seemed weepy too, as she bustled around Katherine, pulling and tugging, plucking and tweaking her garments until she was satisfied that they draped perfectly.  
"You look like an angel, My Lady," Maria whispered. Katherine felt beautiful. She couldn't wait for Arthur to see her in her bridal attire, being given away to him by his brother, the Duke of York, whom the king had appointed once more to be her escort through London.  
Katherine's mind, addled with all the fine red wine she had drunk that night, dimly registered the weight of Arthur settling himself against the pillows next to her, though the brocade counterpane still separated them. Now, she was remembering seeing the prince for the first time that day. He had been flushed—she assumed with excitement or possibly nerves, his eyes exceedingly bright as they found her face. He was magnificently attired in brilliant white and shimmering cloth of silver, his silk hose liberally puffed and slashed, his hair a tumble of glossy waves. He had reached out his beautiful hand to her, helping her to settle herself on her knees before the altar upon the great wooden scaffold. He gripped her hand with a constant pressure, as though she were the only thing holding him together, and the way he looked at her, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, that most solemn and holy prelate, blessed their union and led them in the wedding vows, bespoke of his truest devotion to her. The brightness of the moment—the almost palpable optimism of the crowd surrounding them—the near angelic perfection of it—momentarily stole Katherine's breath, and she felt her eyes mist over.  
After making their vows, the pair of them had risen, husband and wife, prince and princess, heirs to the throne of England, and, led by the king and the archbishop, had proceeded on foot to nearby St. Paul's Cathedral to hear the nuptial mass, followed by all the noblemen and women who made up the king's court. Throughout the entire service, Arthur had not released her hand, his warm skin heating hers, which had been chilled by the November cold. Katherine had rejoiced to be in the vast, airy cathedral. She felt closer to God than she ever had before, and when the procession emerged once again into the daylight, her soul felt somehow buoyant, as though all her cares and worries had been lifted from her and she was, as the wife of Arthur, an entirely different woman.  
They had ridden on horseback to Baynard's Castle, a great mansion on the Thames which had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth's forbears.  
There, Katherine, Arthur, and the rest of the royal family, had presided over the court at the high table, indulging in a magnificent feast with many courses. A choir of little children, their voices as sweet as Katherine imagined those of God's angels to be, entertained the court for a while, and then their were pageants and dancing. Katherine noticed that Arthur ate little, but she assumed it was excitement that kept his appetite at bay, as it did hers. They both imbibed a great quantity of the ruby-colored wine that was served to them, however, and as the evening wore on, the jokes of the men became more ribald. Even Arthur admitted to feeling "lusty", which made Katherine blush furiously.  
"Well, my son, do have a glass of hippocras before you go to bed," said the king, with one of his grimace-like smiles. "'i have heard that the climate in Spain is quite hot."  
Beside her, Princess Margaret giggled tipsily, but Katherine noticed that the younger Henry looked uncharacteristically downcast. Reaching past a dish of figs roasted in a syrup, she took hold of a small plate on which sat an airy mountain of the "snow" she knew Arthur's brother to be so fond of, and spooned it generously onto his trencher. "Why the long face, Prince Henry?" she asked him.  
The prince had started at her words and hurried to plaster a smile upon his handsome little face. "Thank you, Your Highness! I was merely sad because I thought the cook had forgotten to prepare a dishful of snow for me. Thank you for finding it."  
It was an obvious lie, but Katherine decided to let it slip. Probably, Prince Henry was feeling a bit left out, as his brother was currently the center of everyone's attention. He was only ten years old, after all.  
Katherine heard the curtains of the tester bed rustle. Looking down, she saw the Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by the Bishop of London, at the foot of it. They were here to bless the bed and pray for a fruitful union between Arthur and herself. She practically vibrated with excitement. The moment she had waited for, the one she had lain awake imagining each night since her arrival in England, was upon her. Tonight, she would truly be Arthur's wife—and maybe by the morning, she would be carrying the future of the country in her womb.  
"We will leave Your Highnesses now," announced the archbishop, bowing deeply and backing out of the room, the Bishop of London beside him. As the bedchamber door clicked shut, Katherine finally looked over at Arthur.  
He still sat above the coverlet, which Doña Elvira had tucked around Katherine's chin after helping her to undress a half an hour earlier. Katherine remembered the duenna whispering in her ear.  
"Your Highness, your mother exhorted me to make sure you are informed on what you must expect in the marriage bed."  
"O: Doña Elvira, I already know about all that. I couldn't help but know, with my sisters so much older than me," Katherine had explained, rather sheepishly.  
"Then you are aware that for most maidens, it hurts the first time? You know that there is often some bleeding?"  
"Yes, I do," said Katherine, though she found herself much less apprehensive about this detail now than she had been before meeting Arthur. He would be gentle and courteous—she knew he would.  
"Your Highness, take this," said Doña Elvira, and to Katherine's surprise, she slipped a silver needle into Katherine's hand. Her expression was uncharacteristically sympathetic, almost motherly, Katherine thought.  
"What is it, a lucky charm?" asked Katherine, rolling the needle between her thumb and forefinger. It seemed like an ordinary needle to her.  
"No, my child. It is for you to use if something ... if the prince ... if the marital act does not take place," Doña Elvira explained.  
"Doña Elvira, I don't follow you."  
"The prince is young, and he has drunken a great deal of wine. I am also concerned by the symptoms he displayed on your first night at Lambeth. Everyone is interested in whether or not the marriage is consummated this night, and the laundress in charge of washing the linens will almost certainly be bribed by the king to disclose if their was blood on the sheets."  
"How lewd!" Katherine interrupted.  
Doña Elvira smiled grimly. “It is indeed, but sadly, what passes between Prince Arthur and yourself is a matter of international importance."  
"So, what is the needle for, then?" ask Katherine, still fingering it.  
"If, for any reason, the prince does not do his duty tonight, you must prick your finger with it." Ignoring Katherine's shudder, the duenna continued: "Squeeze your blood onto the sheets—a few drops will suffice. It is important that you do this, Your Highness. If your marriage remains unconsummated on the morrow, you, and not the prince, will surely be blamed. Do you understand?"  
Though she found the deception distasteful and personally thought it unnecessary, Katherine nodded her assent, after which Doña Elvira had wrapped her in a brief, fierce embrace. "God be with you, my little Catalina," she had whispered in Katherine's ear. Then she had left.  
***  
Arthur wrenched back the coverlet and sucked in his breath. Katherine was even more beautiful undressed than he had imagined she might be. In the flickering light of the single candle that had been left burning in the bedchamber, her hair, fanning out over the pillow, looked like a cloud of phoenix fire. Her blue eyes were wide and hot with desire as she looked up at him. Her skin, fair as a pearl, flushed under his hungry gaze, and he felt himself grow aroused as he watched the delicate pink spread from her face to her slender throat and then down to her full breasts. He could see her nipples, stiff peaks beneath the sheer linen of her embroidered nightgown. He had promised himself he would show restraint—that he would just look at her, but almost before he could think about what he was doing, he was laying siege to her body, yanking the nightdress over her head, burying his face in her mane of hair, his nostrils filling with the scent of roses and something deeper, heavier, more intoxicatingly sweet and sharp. He kissed her face, her mouth, her neck, her breasts. He heard her exhale, not quite a moan, but almost. He could feel her need for him, could see in her fiery eyes how ready and willing she was to be his—  
He stopped, breathing hard, so ready for her it was painful. "Your—Your Highness ..." he began, but she pulled him back to her.  
"Call me Katherine," she said. "There is no need for formalities with your wife."  
"Katherine," he tried again, and she ran her fingers through his hair, causing gooseflesh to erupt all up and down his arms and back. "Katherine, I ... I cannot—I cannot be with you tonight."  
She seemed to deflate in his arms. Her body went simply limp. For a shivering moment, she stared up at him with a glazed, uncomprehending look.  
Arthur turned his head and coughed one of those disgusting, wet, wracking coughs that made him feel as though his body were trying to expel his very lungs. "I am tired and rather ill," he said lamely, subsiding back against the pillows beside her.  
Katherine still looked confused. He wished he could tell her the truth—that his father had forbidden him to make a true wife of her, but it was so embarrassing, to be nearly a man and yet so powerless against his father. How could she ever respect him if he were to confess his weakness to her?  
"But you seem ... excited ..." she trailed off, glancing significantly at his erection. He covered himself with the sheet, his face burning with shame. He hoped it was too dark for her to see.  
"Katherine, I promise, I will make you my wife someday soon," he said, hoping he could make good on the vow, "but I am too—too tired tonight. I love you," he whispered desperately, reaching over and cupping her cheek.  
She held his gaze for a long moment. Her eyes were like blue gemstones. Then, she sank back into the mattress, and grasped his hand. "I love you too," she murmured.  
***  
Katherine could have wept, listening to Arthur's shallow, rattling breaths beside her. She was glad he had fallen asleep so easily. She wanted to be alone with her shame and frustration. What had gone wrong? All her pride and satisfaction of an hour past had dissipated, as a soap bubble does, leaving her feeling small, dejected. Was it something wrong with her? Her body? Her demeanor? Had she been too bold, too needy? Had she not been bold enough? She felt tears gathering, threatening to spill over, but she would rather die than wake Arthur, rather die than let him see her, a born princess of mighty Spain, reduced to tears over such a matter as this. She turned her mind instead to what she must now do.  
Katherine reached between the sheets, to where she had anchored Doña Elvira's silver needle in the goosedown mattress. Drawing it out, she quickly punctured her thumb with it. The pain of the prick was nothing compared to the inner turmoil she was experiencing. She squeezed several fat beads of blood onto the sheet between her legs, letting them soak into the linen and stain it as red as a pomegranate. Then, she turned her back to Arthur, and fell into a fitful, dreamless sleep.


	10. The King, the Prince, and the Ambassador

1501  
Henry VII had once again retreated to his library. He had just enjoyed a subdued, private dinner with his wife, children, and daughter-in-law, and was eager to dash off his responses to the small pile of letters upon his desk before indulging in a book. He also had plans to meet with Puebla later that evening to discuss the matter of the plate—and Ludlow.  
There was a rather harried rapping at the library door, just as he was dipping his quill into the inkwell. The king cursed under his breath. He reached up, rubbing his throbbing temples where the once-unruly hair was now grizzled and thinning. Could he not get a moment's privacy? As a child and adolescent, he had lived as a fugitive, all his actions furtive and silent, almost everyone he came upon an enemy or the friend of an enemy. He had never become quite accustomed to the constant hubbub of the court, the incessant fawning and paltry flattering of his attendants. Probably why I sequester myself in this library, he thought, rising to open the door himself, for he was utterly alone, without any servant or secretary to wait on him.  
The heavy wooden door opened to reveal the delicately handsome face of his eldest son. Arthur’s expression was restive and distracted, a look that Henry had begun to see more and more often in the few weeks since his wedding to Princess Katherine. Henry could tell that the giddy infatuation the two of them had shared had long since fizzled out, and he imagined it was because Arthur had managed to offend her on their wedding night. He admitted to himself that there was probably no way to avoid humiliating one's bride when refusing to bed her—he had had no such problems with Arthur's mother—but he was a touch surprised by how awkward and strained the young couple's interactions had become. Katherine, for the most part, had retreated into the sanctuary of her chambers, passing the day in women's pursuits, making clothes for the poor, embroidering alter cloths, and playing cards. Occasionally, she would invite the princess Margaret to join her, though Henry imagined Margaret did not enjoy these visits. She had never been the retiring, embroidering type of girl. He suspected that this hardiness and brassiness of nature was what made his eldest daughter his favorite child. Arthur, alas, he had much less patience for, especially when he made one of his weak attempts at rebellion.  
Henry looked down at his son. "Arthur, I am busy. Surely whatever matter you have to discuss with me is of lesser import than anything the Archbishop of Canterbury has to say." His tone was flat, dry, but to his surprise, Arthur did not look cowed by him. He watched his son square his shoulders, his head lowering into a bullish, fighting stance.  
"Sire," said Arthur, "I am going to consummate my marriage. It is my right as a man to get heirs on my wife."  
The king of England sized up his son. During the past weeks, the prince's physicians had kept Henry and Elizabeth abreast of the many fluctuations of his health. Some days, when he was idle and untroubled, he would appear in almost perfect condition, jovial and bright, eager to read and play cards, to enjoy good fare and imbibe rich wines. Other days, if he exerted himself even slightly, he would be gripped by bouts of fever and chills and would cough until he brought up foul black fluid. The physicians had tried poultices, cordials, and bleeding, but nothing so far had worked. They had told the king and queen that their only recourse was to wait out the winter, keeping Arthur as inactive as possible, and hope that the milder spring weather would open his lungs and warm his blood. Henry began to drum his fingers on the desk again. Arthur, at fifteen, was of an age to set off for Ludlow Castle on the welsh border, the traditional seat of the Prince of Wales, to learn how to govern in preparation for his inevitable kingship. Henry feared that the long journey through the December cold would only weaken his son's health, but he was also apprehensive of postponing Arthur's departure, lest the people become aware of his fragile constitution. Well, he thought, with his usual cool decisiveness, I may not be able to put off his traveling to Ludlow, but I most certainly can prevent him from touching that pretty wench he calls wife.  
"You have been forbidden to bed the princess, and I have not wavered on that decision. You are too ill."  
Arthur balked. "I am no man in her eyes. She is disgusted with me. Would you risk her writing home to Ferdinand and complaining that she has married a monk? Suppose he tries to annul the marriage?"  
"That will not happen," snapped the king impatiently. "Ferdinand needs the alliance with England as much as England needs the goodwill of Spain. He also knows the fate that can befall a young man who indulges too much in carnal acts with his wife. He would most likely applaud my decision to keep you and his daughter apart for the time being."  
"Ferdinand has no living son to succeed him. He is aging. Surely he would want his daughter to produce sons, one of whom he might name his successor," countered Arthur, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of Henry's desk, a fine sheen of sweat coating his flushed face.  
Henry laughed derisively at his son's naíveté. "Arthur, you must study the genealogies of the royal houses of Europe more thoroughly! Ferdinand has threedaughters older than your wife, who are all married with children. If he wants an heir, let one of them bear him. Meanwhile," he continued, his voice taking on a forbidding air, "you will do as you have been instructed and have no intimate contact with Katherine, no matter how much she reproaches you. Do not make me resort to posting guards at her chamber door."  
Arthur stared stonily at his father. "You cannot control my actions when I am at Ludlow and out from under your thumb."  
"And what makes you think I will allow Katherine to accompany you there?" Henry barked. As Arthur's face became twisted with impotent fury, he continued in a lower tone. “Do not presume so far as to cross me, Arthur. In my time, I have smited far more formidable characters than you.”  
There was a pregnant pause, and then Arthur turned and stalked out of the door.  
More than an hour passed in which Henry sat in silence, penning letters, then reading a lif of St. Cuthbert. His finger traced the lines of the illuminated manuscript as the nearby candle burned lower and lower in its sconce. Eventually, he became too restless to read, and tossed aside the book. Where was Puebla, that little insect?  
It was as if his thoughts had conjured the ambassador. After a perfunctory tap on the library door, Puebla entered, bowing ostentatiously. "Your grace," he purred.  
"Yes, good evening, Doctor," Henry said brusquely. He wondered if Puebla was aware of how much he repulsed him.  
"What can I assist Your Grace with this day?" asked the Spaniard. Henry noticed that his shortgown was stained with what he assumed were drippings from the day's roast joint. His lip curled involuntarily with disgust.  
"First, I must congratulate you on your ingenuity in averting the suspicions of Ferdinand's spies. Having the fat old nursemaid warn the princess to sully the sheets was a brilliant solution, especially given the lack of time you had."  
Puebla's smile was as thin and sharp as a sickle. "Doña Elvira Manuel is a well-meaning woman who has a penchant for involving herself in matters high above her station," he commented. "I am just glad we were able to deceive the Spanish laundress Ferdinand bribed to inform him whether or not the princess's marriage was consummated. But surely Your Grace has not summoned me here merely to congratulate me on last month’s subterfuge."  
"Indeed, I have not,” affirmed the king. “I wish to revisit the matter of the princess's plate and jewels."  
Puebla leaned forward, his cold, fetid breath like that of a demon out of hell, Henry thought with revoltion. "Your Grace will be pleased to know that I have found the solution to that particular problem," he said with relish.  
"What is it?"  
"I must warn Your Grace that it entails the princess Katherine accompanying Prince Arthur to Ludlow Castle."  
Henry's fingers twitched with the desire to drum on the desktop. "I fear that my son's health is as of yet too delicate to withstand the journey to Ludlow. Why does your plan hinge upon it?"  
"Because, Your Grace, if I am not mistaken, Ludlow has not been inhabited since poor King Edward V lodged there briefly in his capacity as Prince of Wales, and as of yet it is unfurnished.”  
"You are correct," acknowledged Henry, a seed of understanding beginning to germinate in his mind.  
"Well, suppose you do not send the prince and princess to Ludlow with sufficient plate to serve their meals or hangings to keep the castle chambers insulated."  
"You would have me send my son to the wilds of Wales without adequate provisions?" demanded Henry, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice.  
Puebla rushed to explain. "No, Your Grace—indeed, no! The princess is sure to bring her plate with her, and if she is as generous and loyal a girl as she is reputed to be, she will not countenance her servants—and certainly not her husband—going without the items they need to live comfortably at Ludlow if she has substitutes for them in her possession."  
Henry brooded. Was Ferdinand of Aragon's hundred thousand ducats in reparation for the princess's used plate worth gambling with the health of his firstborn son? "You have presented me with a cunning suggestion, Dr Puebla, but I must weigh the options carefully before agreeing. I will summon you here once I have made my ddecision."  
Puebla swept him another exaggerated bow. Sometimes, thought Henry, he almost danced across the line between the polite and the ridiculous. "Very wise of Your Grace. I will be eagerly awaiting your summons," said the ambassador, now backing out of the room.  
Once Puebla had gone, Henry sat back in his chair, tiredly rubbing his temples. The desire to fill the treasury and the need to stabilize his dynasty—which of these two ambitions, which had defined his life and reign, would he choose to further over the other?  
***  
Elizabeth of York lay in her vast tester bed, reveling in the haze that always followed one of her and Henry's prolonged bouts of lovemaking. It was during these times that she often reflected upon her good fortune in having been blessed with a loving husband. Oh, Henry Tudor the man surely had his shortcomings: he was miserly, calculating, and almost manically controlling; but Henry, her husband, had given her very little to complain about. Almost unique among kings of his day, he had taken no mistresses, and he did not fault her for her thoroughly apolitical nature. She was content merely to share his bed, bear his children, and accompany him on state occasions. It also helped, she admitted, that he adored her, far more in fact than she loved him. Though he rarely said as much, she could tell by the frantic, needy way that he took her, even now in his middle age, how valuable she was to him.  
As Elizabeth mused, Henry rolled over and looked at her. She met his gaze, soft now that his passion had been slaked. He reached out and began stroking her long hair. There was something unsettling in his manner, as though he was lacking the relaxed openness he usually displayed when alone with her.  
"Is everything all right with you, My Lord?" she asked gently, caressing his cheek with one beringed hand.  
"I have decided to send Arthur to Ludlow," he said grimly. "I have also made up my mind to send Katherine with him."


	11. The Plate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, again, readers! We're in double digits now (I know, we technically were last chapter, and I was gonna right about that, but you know, sometimes it's easier writing a chapter than writing the notes because I don't know how to be personable). Anyway, I hope as always that you enjoy this most recent segment to KofA's story, and please, if you have a suggestion, a question, a theory, any dialogue to offer me, don't be shy about commenting. I'm quarantining like everybody else and your thoughts on my work really are the highlight of my day. Stay healthy, ship your favorite pairings, read, read, and read some more! XOXOXO —VBC,.

1501  
Katherine craned her neck, gazing upwards through the partition in the curtains of her litter at the rambling structure that was Ludlow Castle. A relic from the Norman conquest of England, Katherine knew the vast stone keep to be over four hundred years old. It possessed many towers, some more modern in appearance, others ancient and forbidding. There was a deep moat cut into the rocky promontory on which the castle balanced, which could be crossed by way of an old-fashioned drawbridge. The aged, lofty air of Ludlow put Katherine in mind of the romantic tales she was fond of reading. She thought it a place more likely to be inhabited by such noble and adventuresome men as the legendary King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, rather than the likes of herself and the Prince of Wales, her husband  
Thinking of the Arthur she knew filled Katherine's mind and heart with warring emotions. She felt at once ashamed, confused, offended, contrite, and desperate in equal measure. She had made many attempts to approach Arthur after the travesty of their wedding night, to have a candid conversation with him about what had caused his interest in her to cool so rapidly, but to no avail. He was cordial to her in public, when they were surrounded by courtiers and attendants, but avoided her company so thoroughly outside of the halls and galleries of his father's palaces that she was unable to obtain a moment's privacy with him. She remembered how fierce his tone had been when proclaiming his love for her during their only night alone, but had become in the past few weeks increasingly doubtful as to his honesty. How could he love her, when he had snubbed her with no explanation and now refused even to look her in the eye while speaking to her? Their interactions had returned to tense, formal dialogue in Latin, and no longer did they share intimate glances or grasp hands at table. Katherine had found herself more and more isolated, rarely leaving her apartments except to occasionally attend on Queen Elizabeth or play cards with Margaret Tudor, who seemed to have picked up on her brother's distance from his wife and treated her with a polite aloofness that contrasted with Katherine's first impression of her as a merry, opinionated person. Katherine had come more and more to rely on her ladies-in-waiting for company, and on top of her frustration with her husband she had begun to fear that this reclusiveness would eventually cause her popularity at the English court to wane.  
The only bright spot in her life since the wedding, Katherine admitted to herself, had come in the form of Prince Henry. Though she rarely saw him, for the king kept him well-occupied with a rigorous schedule of tutoring, whenever the royal family convened at the high table for feasts or the two of them both happened to be in Princess Margaret's apartments at the same time, he would always dance or play cards or discuss literature with her, his lively eyes and effusive conversation lending color to her otherwise uneventful days. She was sure he merely pitied her because of how little notice his elder brother took of her these days, but she was grateful for his kindness nonetheless, and though they were over five years apart in age, she counted Henry as one of her closest friends.  
A blast of frigid wind ruffled the skirt of Katherine's new English gown, and she instinctively tugged her ermine-lined cloak tighter around her shoulders in a fruitless attempt to ward off the penetrating cold. Though the queen's tailors had taken into account the coldness of the season, as well as Katherine's personal aversion to it, and added extra petticoats to her new wardrobe, she had still been forced to spend most of the bone-jarring journey to Ludlow hunkered down in her litter, piled with rugs and swathed in furs. It seemed natural to her that the climate at Ludlow, this craggy, windswept place, would be even more inclement than that of damp and misty London. She had a sense that, if matters between Arthur and herself did not change soon, her existence in this faraway place would become very desolate indeed.  
Shivering and eager to enter the shelter of the castle, Katherine surveyed the attendants bustling around her, hoping to get a glimpse of Arthur. Perhaps, she thought selfishly, now that he was not surrounded by his family and friends, loneliness would compel him to seek her out for companionship. She knew this to be a despicable hope to harbor—as Arthur's wife, she should never wish ill upon him—but she was grasping at straws. Besides her preoccupation with their unconsummated union, she was also concerned with Arthur's health. She could not help but notice how frail and tremulous he appeared sometimes, how often he barely ate at supper and excused himself early. She truly believed that if he would confide in her, her support would buoy his spirits and lend him the strength to overcome this persistent illness. Perhaps, consummating the marriage, as he was mandated by God to do, would balance his humors, and then both of her goals would be accomplished at once.  
Katherine did not see Arthur. Once again, he had somehow eluded her. She watched as his servants, loaded down with his possessions, snaked across the medieval drawbridge, their livery glowing in the sharp, mid-afternoon sunlight. Sighing with disappointment, Katherine turned back to her own retinue, hawkishly surveying those who were handling the caskets containing her precious plate, which she had brought with her to Ludlow, as her father had insisted she do in his most recent letter to her. She did not know why Ferdinand was so adamant that the plate not fall into King Henry's hands, though she privately wondered if he had guessed that her marriage remained unconsummated. She little knew how he would know, for not even Doña Elvira had interrogated her on the morning after her wedding, for which Katherine was eternally grateful. Perhaps her duenna had checked for blood on the needle she had given Katherine, but she could not be sure.  
Katherine was surprised to see a lone attendant of Arthur's speeding back down the drawbridge ′toward her. As he approached, she saw that the young knight's eyebrows were knitted in consternation. He stopped a few paces from her and knelt upon the uneven ground.  
"You may rise," she told him, puzzled. Why did the man seem so distressed?  
The knight stood hurriedly. "Your Highness, I regret to inform you that the castle is in a state of disarray. It is obvious that it has not been sufficiently prepared for Your Highness and the Prince to lodge here. There are no rushes, no hangings, and the kitchen staff has not yet begun to prepare a meal suitable for Your Highnesses."  
"Why is this?" demanded Katherine, perturbed.  
"Begging Your Highness's pardon, but the steward says that their are no hangings in good enough condition to be put to use in the royal apartments, nor is their any plate on which to serve a meal for Your Highness and the Prince's household."  
"But surely the king sent along funds for the castle to be furnished ahead of our coming?" she exclaimed, a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. She could not let her servants, the majority of whom were of gentle birth, be deprived of the comforts that befitted their station. It would reflect terribly on her as mistress of her own household. And what of Arthur? He could not be housed in chambers without hangings to stave off drafts and bare, cold stone floors—not in his current condition.  
"Your Highness, I am afraid no provision has been made for such a circumstance," said the attendant, grimly. Katherine met his gaze, and she saw in his eyes the expectation that she would have a solution for this calamity. She made up her mind. She was the lady of this castle.  
"I have in my possession a quantity of plate and hangings which we may use until my husband can write to his father and appeal to him for a permanent resolution to this problem. The items are part of my dowry and were not intended for my personal use, but I must ensure that my husband and our households are well cared for by their Prince and Princess."  
The groom bowed, and she was gratified to see a look of admiration in his eyes. "Your Highness is a most gracious lady," he murmured.  
"Please inform the steward, sir, and have him order the kitchens to begin preparing supper immediately. Tell Prince Arthur that for now, the matter is resolved," Katherine commanded him. The young man bowed once more, then turned around and began trekking back up to the castle, leaving her alone with her thoughts once more.  
That night, she and Arthur presided alone at the high table in the castle's grand old hall. A massive fire burned cheerily in the center of the room, driving away the biting cold and causing flashes of light to dart like metallic fish in the highly polished surface of Katherine's solid gold salt seller. The table service, when laid out upon a brilliantly white cloth embroidered at its corners with Tudor roses, was splendid to behold, but Katherine found her appetite stuntedred by worry over whether her father would be wrathful upon learning of her disobedience.  
"Katherine ..." The two of them had passed the first few courses of the meal in almost total silence, so Arthur's voice, while low, seemed to echo in the empty air between them. "I cannot help but notice that you have eaten very little. Has something upset you?"  
Katherine studied her husband over the rim of her wine goblet. It appeared that today was one of his healthier days, and she noted that his trencher, as well as his goblet, was empty but for a crust of bread and some bones. Despite the awkwardness between them, she was gratified to see him enjoying his food.  
"Katherine?"  
She realized that she hadn't answered him. "Nothing has upset me, My Lord," she assured him. "I am simply glad that I still had my plate with me, otherwise I fear our evening would not have turned out as comfortable as it has."  
"I meant to thank you for suggesting that we use it. I know you risk incurring your father's displeasure by doing so," Arthur said, and, taking her quite by surprise, he reached across the pristine tablecloth and gently took her by the hand. Looking up into his warm, gray eyes, Katherine saw a tenderness pass across his face that she hadn't seen in several weeks. She wanted to smile at him, but she was afraid that even moving the muscles of her face would shatter the unexpected moment and snuff out the tiny spark that was dispelling the coolness between them. Since their marriage, she had thought that if ever she got the chance to talk to Arthur alone, she would bombard him with questions about his withdrawing from her—whether it was her fault, why he had been avoiding her, how she could make things better for him; yet now, she found that her throat had closed, leaving her mute, unable to free the words that sat like stones on her tongue. She merely looked into his face, and it seemed to her that a hundred thoughts passed between them in the split second before he released her hand. She knew that he would explain all in time, and she subsided back in her chair, content to wait until he was ready.  
***  
Arthur awoke that night, tangled in his silken sheets, alone but for the servant who snored quietly on the pallet bed nearby. He had been dreaming about Katherine—dreaming of holding her again, telling her how much he had longed for her these past weeks, how he had screwed up all his courage to defy his father but had been dismissed out of hand. In his dream, he apologized profusely, and she forgave him, covering his face in gentle kisses, pulling him into her soft embrace, engulfing them both in the heady scent of her hair and her skin and her desire. He always awoke, reflected Arthur, before anything more than this happened. He prayed that when he could finally come to her—when he had rooted out which of his servants was most likely to be reporting back to his father—it would be so easy to right the damage he could see had been done to her by his feigned disinterest. In truth, he had been a coward. He knew that telling her the truth would have saved him the unhappy experience of watching her shuffle forlornly about Richmond Palace, a deflated character retreating farther and farther into the background of his daily life; but he had been terrified that if he confided in her the truth of his father's scheme, she would write to King Ferdinand, and Ferdinand, angered by Henry's deceit, would request an annulment, which the Pope would surely grant on the basis that the marriage was unconsummated, and Arthur would lose Katherine forever. The thought of not having this person whom he had come to love even more fervently from afar was intolerable to Arthur, and so he had forced himself to grow distant from her, though he could see plainly how much it distressed her.  
"I will make it up to you, my good, kindhearted little wife," Arthur whispered aloud, hoping his words would somehow penetrate her sleeping mind and she would know them to be true. "I just need a bit more time."


	12. The Prince's Confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, readers! It's officially my first time uploading chapters without at least a day in between! Can anybody tell I'm really getting into this story? So, I have a question for everybody: Who else is getting a little too attached to Arthur? This wasn't my intention, but I feel like he and Katherine have sort of evolved into this really cute, mature fifteen-year-old pre-modern power couple. Anyway, enough tangents—let's get right into it! Much love! —VBC

1502  
Katherine watched the last knot of sleepy-eyed servants shuffle out the chapel door from her vantage point near the altar. She was glad that many of them had risen early for mass, despite the revelries of the night before. Last night had been Twelfth Night, the culmination of the Yuletide season, and she herself felt as exhausted as many of her ladies looked. Nonetheless, she had felt compelled to come here and listen to Father Geraldini lead the congregation in a prayer of thanks for the many blessings of the recent days.  
Since she could remember, Katherine had always loved Christmas best of all holy days. As a child, it had been because her birthday, the sixteenth of December, almost immediately preceded the twelve days of Christmas, and so she had always received from her parents especially lavish gifts on New Year's, when members of the court exchanged gifts among themselves and with their sovereigns. One year, when she was still a very little girl, her mother had given her the most exquisite doll that came with her very own miniature wardrobe contained in a casket made of fragrant cedar wood. When she grew older, the gifts became more sophisticated and practical—a ruby-encrusted collar with engraved pomegranates, a sable pelt to hang from her girdle with sapphire eyes and paws of goldsmith's work, and gorgeously illuminated books, their creamy vellum pages filled not with blocky print from a press but with dainty calligraphy, executed by the skillful hands of monks who spent their days painstakingly copying manuscripts. Katherine had harbored a futile hope that the king would summon her and Arthur back to court for the festivities, but an invitation never came. Evidently, the king not only wished to test Arthur's skill with government, but also to ascertain whether Katherine herself could adequately organize courtly celebrations—a duty she would assume upon her accession as queen. She had been saddened by the idea of a dreary Christmas at Ludlow, for though Arthur often entertained petitions from local noblemen, they and their retinues were largely alone in this isolated part of the country.  
Nevertheless, Katherine had made up her mind to do the best she could with what she had. She wished to lift everyone's spirits—for despite the fires that were kept lit all throughout the night, the bitter cold was getting to even the cheeriest of the servants, who went about grumbling, their figures distorted and clumsy in layers of extra petticoats, stockings and cloaks. As she had feared, Arthur had gradually become more and more infirm, though the physician that had accompanied him to Ludlow assured her that his condition was no worse than it had ever been in London and that it was sure to pass after the arrival of the warmer months. Though relations between them had warmed considerably, between his duties as Prince of Wales and his bouts of illness, Arthur rarely svisited her and had made no further attempts to consummate their marriage. Katherine hoped that a lively atmosphere might invigorate him and turn his mind and heart back to her.  
With these goals in mind, she had set about planning almost as soon as her belongings had been unpacked. She consulted with the steward, the cook, the baker and the confectioner, and together they planned an extensive menu for the Twelfth Night celebration, which was to include over twenty separate courses. The thought of this magnificent feast had kept her mouth watering for weeks before, and she had had to confess to Father Geraldini on multiple occasions of committing the sin of greed during the fasting period, for which she had been ordered to do penance. She also went about recruiting the most skilled dancers from among her ladies and Arthur's men to perform in a series of masques for their small court to enjoy during the celebrations of Christmas Day, New Year, and the most extravagant of them all: Twelfth Night. After the solemnity of Christmas Eve, the great hall was transformed, every available surface festooned with garlands of holly and mistletoe and aglow with the light of many beeswax tapers.  
Katherine bowed her head in prayer, thanking God for guiding her in her efforts to properly celebrate the birth of His only Son. She remembered the swell of her pride as Arthur looked on from the high table at the capering and guffawing Lord of Misrule, a groom who, having been served the slice of Christmas cake containing the dry bean, went about entertaining all present with his drunken antics, playing blind man's buff and dancing merrily with ladies far above his station. For the first time in weeks, Arthur's face did not look pinched and haggard. He quaffed fine Renish with gusto, allowing Katherine to serve him choice fillets of his favorite whitefish from a steaming, gilded platter. She thanked God for the fact that Arthur had been emboldened enough to escort her onto the rush-strewn floor and dance with her in both the Spanish and English fashions. She had felt so beautiful in that moment, with the voluminous sleeves of her silk gown billowing around her like angel's wings, and when he looked at her, she felt for the first time since their wedding night that even if it did not happen soon, Arthur loved her and would one day make her his true wife. She thanked God for this newfound assurance that she was safe, and felt her eyes prickle behind her closed lids with the pure relief of it.  
She was startled by a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I thought I would find you here, my pious one."  
Katherine opened her eyes slowly, blinking in the early morning sunlight filtering through the chapel's stained-glass windows. Arthur stood before her, looking still slightly thin and wan, but smiling nonetheless. He was close enough that she could smell his scent—a smell that reminded her of a forest of evergreens. She noticed the blackwork on the cuff of his lawn shirtsleeve and knew it to be her own handiwork. He had liked her New Year's gift as much as she had adored the boisterous mastiff pup he had gifted her, then.  
Katherine broke into a smile, rising to stand toe to toe with him. "How are you feeling this morning, My Lord?" she asked solicitously.  
Arthur reached out and entwined his elegant, tapered fingers with her plump ones. "I am well, madam, though a little heavy at heart. Would you join me in the library?"  
Katherine was puzzled. Heavy at heart? "I would be glad to join you, sir. Shall I summon a servant to attend on us?"  
"That will not be necessary, Katherine," he said familiarly, and she allowed herself to be pulled by the hand out of the chapel and down an airy gallery, its walls hung with the tapestries that had been part of her dowry. Slowly they ascended the grand staircase leading to the royal apartments, and then they entered a slightly dusty-smelling, wood-paneled room Arthur had commandeered as a study and library in the image of the one his father kept at Richmond. She noticed that Arthur's breath was somewhat shallow, as though the trek upstairs had winded him, and was glad when he sank into a chair by the fire and beckoned her to take the one facing him.  
"Katherine, my wife, I hope you can forgive me," Arthur began at once, with the air of someone eager to unburden himself.  
Katherine felt her eyebrows raise. "My Lord, I can assure you that I bear you no ill will, for you surely have done nothing to deserve it."  
"I wish it were so, madam, but I fear I have been unjust to you for my own cowardly reasons. I hope only that by telling you the full truth, you may be able to understand my case and be merciful in your treatment of me, for I crave nothing more greatly than your clemency."  
Katherine felt her palms becoming clammy, her pulse quickening. Her mind scrambled for a plausible reason for Arthur’s contrition, and immediately it seized on the worst possible scenario. How could she not have seen it before? He must have had a mistress—some Englishwoman whose bed he had far rather share than her own—and that was why he had abandoned her and kept her at arm's length. She stared at him, agog. How humiliating, to discover such a thing!  
Arthur must have seen the dawning horror on her face, for he rushed on. "Dear Katherine, do forgive me—my father forbade me from consummating our marriage until such a time as he sees fit. He claims it is because of my health, but I fear it has more to do with his desire to force your father's Majesty into sending him the value of your plate in coin. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and it is the only sensible explanation for why he sent us to Ludlow without having the castle properly furnished for our arrival. If he were truly concerned with my health, he would have kept me at court. I think he wishes you to remain a maiden so that he can easily have the marriage annulled if King Ferdinand refuses to grant his request for the hundred thousand ducats. Katherine, I fear we have both been sorely used."  
Katherine felt her mouth drop open with shock. She felt like boxing her own ears! How could it not have been plain to her that Henry, whom her mother had warned her to be wary of, would have some trickery up his sleeve? Her kindness, her self-effacing nature, her innate propriety—all had been exploited in the miserly king's plot to enrich himself. And poor Arthur, forced to bear her frustration and disdain, when he had really wanted her all along! Her mind raced back to their wedding night, and suddenly it made perfect sense why he had seemed so torn, so tortured, even as he rebuffed her.  
"So ..." her voice was as dry as autumn leaves rustling underfoot. "So, you really did want me? I did not displease you?"  
Arthur leaned forward, hands on knees, his face glazed with a light sheen of perspiration, though from passion or the heat of the flames, Katherine could not be sure. "I have wanted you—dreamed of you, even—since the day I met you, Katherine. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes upon, and I have loved you since the day I first held your perfect hand." Reaching forward, he took her hands, now dangling limply in her lap, and gave them a fierce squeeze.  
Something was nagging at the back of Katherine's mind. "But Arthur, if your father wished to keep us from sharing a bed, then surely he ought to have commanded me to remain at Richmond and sent you along to Ludlow."  
"Yes, but at Richmond, he would have had much more difficulty creating a pretext for you to have to use your plate," Arthur explained, stroking circles on the back of her hands with his thumbs. She could tell he had spent a good deal of time puzzling this out.  
"But what is to stop us from living as spouses now?" burst out Katherine, her temper rising. Her parents had raised her to be unquestioningly obedient to the men who ruled her life, but her hackles rose at the thought of the injustice King Henry had done her, not to mention his own son and heir. Katherine could be carrying a future king in her belly by now, were it not for his baseness and greed.  
Arthur lowered his voice, leaning toward her. "He has sent someone to spy on me—a member of my entourage who is loyal first to him. I think I have discovered who it is, but am not as sure yet as I would like to be. But rest assured, Katherine—when I discover who my father's agent is, I will do my best to thwart him at every turn, and I promise, we will be together then."  
Katherine felt overwhelmed. "Arthur, I am sorry for ever doubting you," she murmured, looking beseechingly into his intelligent eyes.  
Arthur pulled her to him with surprising strength, considering his frail stature. "Katherine, I am the one who should apologize. I should have taken you into my confidence long ago. I must admit, I was afraid—afraid of offending a princess of mighty Spain, who might be so disgusted by my father's unscrupulousness that she would make up her mind to dessert me and return to her sunny home, never to see or think of me again."  
"Arthur ... Arthur ..." Katherine was speechless. "I love you—I would never—I have done everything I could think of to ignite passion in your heart, to ease your suffering, to—to—" She felt her throat closing, despite Queen Isabel's rigorous training in maintaining a tight rein on her emotions. She could not help it. Something about Arthur simply ... unraveled her heart. Her love for him uncoiled in her chest like a reel of embroidery thread, spooling out through her veins and flooding her extremities with searing heat, making her head light.  
They were suddenly on the hearthrug, she sitting, he kneeling, their mouths pressed hungrily against one another. They fondled one another clumsily, each seeming to have too many hands and fingers, for in truth neither of them was quite sure of what they were doing. Katherine shivered when Arthur’s lips laid siege to her neck and shoulders, exposed by the low neckline of her English dress, and she whimpered aloud when he tore at her bodice, his hands finding the swell of her breasts and exploring them with harried ardor, gently rolling the nipples between his fingers as he nibbled her lower lip. When he guided her hand to where his codpiece was, she was not at all embarrassed, but let him show her how best to pleasure him.  
The library door snapped open, and Katherine and Arthur leapt apart, hastily smoothing their tousled clothing. To Katherine's abject horror, Doña Elvira lumbered into view, her chins wobbling. She beckoned to Katherine. "The cook has just sent up the midday meal to Your Highness's chamber," she said, her affect flat, though Katherine thought she detected a hint of disapproval lurking beneath the polite faćade.  
"Thank you, Doña Elvira. My husband and I were merely reading the ... the ...”  
"The Mort D'Arthur," Arthur supplied, realizing that Katherine, in her current state, could not come up with even a single book title.  
"Very nice, Your Highness," said the duenna with rigid calmness. "Your ladies and I will be waiting for you in the privy chamber." She backed out of the room, her sharp eyes never leaving Katherine's face.  
Once Doña Elvira had disappeared from view, Katherine was surprised to hear Arthur chuckle. Glancing at him, his face flushed and shortgown askew, she felt a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter escape her. Soon, they were clutching each other, shaking with mirth, until he released her and pulled back, surveying her face for a long moment.  
Arthur tucked a stray curl of fiery hair back under her coif. “Katherine, it distresses me to see you leave, but I doubt your nurse will stay gone for long, and my men are probably missing me as well." He kissed her forehead softly. "Meet me back here after supper, so that we can do some more 'reading.'"  
She grinned, enjoying how warm and light her body felt, even in the heart of this dank castle. "Should I have my lady, Maria de Salinas, keep watch so that we are not disturbed during this 'reading'?" she asked cheekily.  
Arthur bestowed her with a rakish wink. "I think that is a wonderful idea," he said, and they parted ways.


	13. Arthur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, guys. Here we are. I apologize for the delay in updating, but some personal matters got in the way. I'm glad to return to my happy place, i.e. this story. As usual, comments are welcome! I hope you enjoy.

1502  
Rain pounded the ramparts of Ludlow Castle, crashing down in bushelfuls as if dumped from the sky by an ancient, wrathful god. The water splashed down the steep castle walls and fed the nearby River Teme nearly to bursting its banks. The Princess of Wales sat curled in a deep armchair by the fire in the castle library, unable to see the flashes of lightning ripping up the iron-colored sky, but nonetheless awed by the sheer volume of rain spilling from the heavens. Across her lap, there balanced a heavy, leather-bound tome, its pages inscribed with the words of Cicero, written in a monk's cramped scrawl. Her only attendant, the faithful Maria de Salinas, sat embroidering a respectful distance away, close to the door and partially obscured from Katherine's view. They were both tense, watching the door, wondering when Arthur would make an appearance.  
Katherine realized with a start that she had been reading and rereading the same paragraph for several minutes and that the Latin words still made no sense in her mind. She was surprised—usually, she could while away many a contented hour committing to memory the wisdom of Cicero, but today her mind felt inclined to wander.  
It was now the Lenten season, and Katherine could not remember a year in which the periods of fasting or the enforced solemnity of the court had been so difficult to withstand. Everyone went about hungry and ill-tempered, and Katherine's own stomach and head ached often. Conversation was rare and brief in between prayers, and mealtimes were dismal, the fare plainer and the number of dishes severely reduced.  
There was one ray of hope that brightened the long days of sacrifice and reflection, which cheered all of Ludlow's inhabitants, but Katherine in particular: the Prince of Wales' health seemed to be improving. When the first rains of March had begun to sweep the countryside, turning the Teme into a lake and making of the castle courtyard one enormous mud-puddle, Katherine had been terrified that the damp would weaken Arthur even further, but no such calamity had occurred. Though like everyone else, Arthur had been forced indoors by the driving rains, he still went about Ludlow with a certain spring in his step, his face no longer pallid, his eyes no longer backlit with a feverish glow. At table, he ate and drank and jested with gusto, and whenever he could slip away from his watchful attendants, he and Katherine, with Maria in tow as lookout, would slip into the library, take up their customary positions in chairs by the fire, and the minutes and hours would slip past them with uncanny speed as they conversed about books, their lineages, their favorite passtimes, and what they hoped to do once the storm abated and the sun once again shone down on a vibrant, growing world. As the days wore on, Katherine felt her initial attraction to her husband morphing into something deeper, more complex—an emotion she had never experienced, which sat in her breast like a warm, heavy stone, almost uncomfortably present throughout all her waking hours. No longer did she flush or tremble with nerves when Arthur's name came up in conversation or when they passed one another in the corridors of Ludlow; rather, she now smiled with pride at the thought of him and found herself pitying her English ladies-in-waiting, many of whom railed hopelessly against the unpleasant candidates whom their fathers were considering for their husbands. When at her prayer desk, Katherine had no more reason to beg God to turn Arthur's affections to her, for she knew, when they shared one of their rare embraces in the dimly-lit warmth of the library, that he returned her adoration Measure for measure.  
Married couples—even royal ones—were forbidden by church edicts to engage in carnal acts during the Lenten period. It was all the better, then, that Arthur had not yet been able to rid himself of the servant his father had employed as a spy, for the presence of that man kept their clandestine meetings brief and few and prevented them from falling too far into temptation. Still, Katherine yearned for Arthur's touch, and when he sent a message to her by way of a trusted page, requiring her presence in the library, she and Maria wasted no time in throwing gowns on over their kirtles and slipping past Doña Elvira and into the dark hall beyond her chambers.  
It was early evening, with little over an hour left before she and Arthur would be expected at supper, and Katherine laced and unlaced her fingers, wondering what was taking him so long to appear. She prayed that King Henry's spy had not somehow gotten word of their secret trists and managed to prevent Arthur from leaving his own chamber. They had not met for nearly a week, and as much as it embarrassed her to admit it to herself, Katherine pined for him.  
"My Lady, I hear footsteps," reported Maria in a low voice. Katherine sat bolt upright in her chair, clutching her book, ready to feign deep interest in its contents.  
To her delight, the door creaked open a crack, admitting the lithe form of Arthur, who walked into the room, unattended, and opened his arms to her. Wordlessly, Katherine rose and made her way quickly to him, entwining her arms about him and resting her cheek against the rough damask of his doublet. He held her for an interminable moment, his arms sure and strong around her, no longer tremulous with the fatigue of illness.  
Arthur pulled away from her, surveying her face for a moment, and then kissed her nose fondly. "I am surprised you did not rebuff me, wife, in favor of your Cicero and your prayers," he said humorously, twirling a curl of her hair around his finger.  
Katherine batted his hand away playfully. "Do not be irreverent," she cautioned.  
Arthur grinned. "Irreverent of the Lord, or Cicero?"  
Katherine feigned exasperation but was unable to maintain the pretense for long as Arthur lifted her quite off the ground. He seated himself in her abandoned chair, tossing Cicero aside—quite irreverently—and settled her on his lap, her voluminous skirts fanning out around her legs like the tail of some magnificent bird.  
"My Lord," she protested, blushing furiously as he tore the hood from her head, revealing the long tail of her hair which its veil had concealed. "Doña Elvira will surely know what we have been up to once she has seen the state of me!"  
"It is of no matter now, Katherine," Arthur told her, beaming triumphantly, "for I have finally rid myself of my father's man. No one can stop us from consummating our marriage now."  
For a moment, Katherine was speechless. Could it really be that they were now finally free to live like husband and wife? Would their marriage now be made true in the eyes of God? Her pulse quickened as she imagined for the thousandth time how glorious it would feel ... But there was still something impeding them—an authority not even a Prince and Princess of Wales could subvert.  
"Arthur," she said gently, "we cannot do this yet. It would be despicable in the eyes of God for us to violate church law and consummate our marriage during Lent."  
"I care nothing for—" but Arthur broke off, seeming to remember how seriously Katherine took her faith. After a deep, steadying breath, he took her chin in his hands.  
"I understand," he said softly. "You are quite right—it was most selfish of me to incite you to commit such a base act during a time which should be dedicated to prayer and self-restraint, and a grievous failure as a husband. At my prayers tonight, I will thank God for blessing me with such a conscientious wife, for I will surely need such a woman at my side when I am king."  
"You are not displeased with me?" Katherine probed, feeling torn in two directions. Part of her felt righteous for being so scrupulous, but another, perhaps larger part, wished to cut out her own tongue for having denied Arthur—and herself—the opportunity to do the thing they both had been longing to do for months now.  
"Never," Arthur assured her, tenderly replacing her cap and smoothing the veil back into place. "I must confess, though, that I will be looking forward to Easter more than usual this year." He rose and, kissing her hand, withdrew from the library smiling.  
Maria de Salinas was aghast. "Why did you turn him away, My Lady?" she demanded, quite forgetting her position, but Katherine let it pass. Dazedly, she replaced the discarded Cicero back on its shelf and made for the door, indicating that Maria should follow.  
"I think I shall take my supper in my chambers tonight, Maria," Katherine said as they padded down the corridor in soft-slippered feet. "I feel like spending some extra time at my prayers, fortifying my spirit."  
Katherine had only just begun to doze when the door to her bedchamber swung silently on its hinges and a bobbing candle flame came into view. She slid out of bed quickly, heart pounding, terrified that it might be an intruder who had somehow bypassed the castle guards and come to do harm to her and her ladies. She nearly tripped over the sleeping form of Blanca de Vargas, who lay on a pallet bed near the hearth, ready to rise and attend to any needs her mistress might have during the night. Blanca stirred, but did not waken. Katherine groped through the darkness, stumbling toward the flickering light.  
"Katherine, hush! Do not cry out, I beg of you." It was Arthur's voice. Katherine halted midstep. Why—how—was he in her bedchamber in the middle of the night? Where were his servants?  
Arthur lifted the candle, letting the light from its burning wick illuminate the space between them. His face was brought into sharp relief, its jaw set determinedly. He was dressed as if for bed, in a crisp linen shirt and a heavy robe of crimson velvet. He shone his light upon her, the stark whiteness of her nightrail and her lustrous hair glinting in the darkness.  
"Katherine," Arthur said, his voice breathy, "I have come to beg you to share your bed with me, for I fear that I shall go mad if I am forced to endure another instant without touching you."  
Hot desire filled Katherine's body as her gaze raked up and down Arthur, even before the meaning of his words sunk in. How could she turn him away and deny herself the bliss of surrendering her body to him? He was her husband, after all. Surely God could not be too displeased with them for doing what was only right and natural for them to do.  
"Come in," she finally told him, the words coming out of her mouth in a breathless little puff, like a feeble summer wind.  
Arthur needed no further encouragement. He hastily set down his candle by her water jug and pitcher, and then he was upon her, trapping her in his embrace, smothering her with hungry kisses, his hands making short work of her nightgown, which he tossed to the floor as if it was offensive to him, leaving her standing there naked, chest heaving, her skin glowing like alabaster in the pool of candlelight.  
Blanca de Vargas woke at the small commotion. She blinked calf-brown eyes up at Arthur, her sleepy mind clearly not registering who he was for several moments. When the realization dawned on her, she scrambled to her feet, attempting a clumsy curtsy, but Arthur waved her away.  
"Go, madam—make yourself scarce," he commanded. Blanca, who knew no English, looked beseechingly to Katherine for clarification, but upon seeing her undressed, seemed to absorb Arthur's meaning and scuttled from the room, pulling the door shot behind her.  
A slightly hysterical laugh escaped Katherine's lips between onslaughts of passionate kisses. "Let us hope she does not rouse Doña Elvira."  
"Begging your pardon, wife, but damn Doña Elvira,′ her husband replied flippantly, cupping her breast; in his hand. They had somehow traveled across the room, and Arthur now stood with his back to her high tester bed, his legs braced against its side. He divested himself of his velvet robe, letting it pool around his feet. In a rare moment of boldness, Katherine reached out and tugged off his nightshirt, leaving him as naked as her. He was as beautiful undressed as she had thought—truly a perfect prince, a perfect husband, a perfect father for their future perfect children.  
As he had done earlier that day, Arthur lifted her into his arms, but now, with no heavy garments between them, they tumbled back onto the damask counterpane of a bed and not the seat of an armchair. His hands, which had been roving up and down her body, raising gooseflesh wherever they touched, now ran along her sides, over her hips and parted her thighs. She could not help it—she moaned aloud with pleasure, throwing her head back as his nimble fingers touched her in a place where she had never even touched herself. He caressed her, teased her until she felt as if she were on the brink of combustion. Now he was on top of her, and now she was on top of him, but finally they came to rest, his hands on her arms, high above her head against the pillows. Their heavy breathing was the only sound in the room. Arthur's eyes burned with his purpose.  
Katherine closed her own eyes. Somewhere beyond the haze of her arousal, she prepared herself for the pain she had been told would come, the intrusion, the sensation of being split apart, of her body making room within itself for him. She felt him pressing against her, so insistent, clenched her fist against the pain. He began to enter her—  
Arthur's body, hovering over her, taut with desire, seemed to slacken. His trembling arms appeared suddenly unable to support him, and he rolled away from Katherine, landing on his side next to her, panting. Panicking, Katherine turned to face him, feeling as she did something wet slip down her inner thigh. "Husband, are you well?" she demanded, taking in his dazed expression, the sweat on his brow. "Was that not how it was supposed to go?" She was almost certain that something had gone awry—there had not been enough pain—but she was too ignorant of the ways of lovemaking to be entirely sure. All the passion of a moment ago had suddenly abandoned her body, leaving her with a desire to dress herself, comb her mussed hair, and scrub away the mess between her legs.  
Arthur's face burned like an ember, and he averted his gaze. "No, Katherine, that is not how it was supposed to go," he said, shamefacedly. "I have failed once again to do my duty by you."  
"I do not understand," she said, feeling stupid and desperate. What if his embarrassment caused him once more to avoid her, and she would again have to spend weeks regaining his interest? Katherine didn't think she could bear it.  
"In order for a marriage to be properly consummated, and for children to be conceived, the man must spill his seed inside of the woman. This is what my father taught me before we were wed. It is shameful and wasteful for the man to spill his seed outside of his wife." Arthur's tone was defeated.  
Katherine suddenly understood what the fluid was that had run down her legs and now stained the sheet, and now her face too flushed with mortification. "I am sorry, Arthur. Did I do something wrong that caused this to happen?"  
He sat up quickly, taking her hastily into his arms and crushing her lips with a kiss. "All you have done this night is be the loveliest creature I have ever laid eyes upon," he consoled. "While I am dismayed at my failure this night, I am satisfied knowing that their will be many more nights on which to correct my mistake. I love you Katherine. I want—I need to have you again and again, for as long as God permits. It pleases me to imagine you as my queen and the mother to my heirs. I look forward to visiting your bed many nights for years to come."  
Katherine's eyes brimmed as the impact of what they had just done became apparent to her. "Thank you, husband," she whispered. "I only wish that you could stay with me this night."  
"I cannot stay until the morning, my love, for I still wish us to keep our meetings a secret for a while longer—at least until we have lain together enough times for my father to be unable to separate us again. But I will visit you again in the library tomorrow, and I will join you in bed as soon as possible—perhaps after Lent is over." He winked broadly at her. "Remember to ask God to forgive our transgression tomorrow."  
They were both laughing softly as Arthur took his leave of her. Katherine fell asleep shortly thereafter, a smile still playing about the corners of her mouth.  
For the Princess of Wales, the next morning never dawned. When her duenna found her some hours later, Katherine lay writhing in the sweat-drenched sheets, crying out incoherently in a fever-fueled delirium. When given water, she retched, when bled by the hastily summoned physician, she lay limp, listless, her eyes glowing bright and sightless. The physician could not stay long to attend his mistress, however, for he was needed for a more important purpose. On the other side of Ludlow Castle, an even greater tragedy than the princess's illness was taking place. The servants wrung their hands, a messenger was dispatched to Richmond Palace, and all activity in the castle seemed to have come to a grinding halt; and still the Princess Katherine tossed and turned in a chamber rank with the odor of disease, completely unaware of her life shaking apart at the foundations.


	14. Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well readers. I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. I hate the fact that history forced my hand on this one. If only things had been different—imagine how happy Katherine could have been. Sadly, we will never know. At any rate, I am grateful as always to my readers for believing in this work, and hopefully you all will stick with me through this next most difficult period in Katherine's life. As always, I appreciate all reader feedback. —VBC

1502  
The chaplain of King Henry VII was a stooped, grizzled old priest who shuffled, rather than walked, along the rush-strewn corridors of Richmond Palace. Throughout his many years of life, the chaplain had heard it posited again and again that time passed more quickly when one was contented or expecting good things to come. He had hopeed for the opposite to be true when one dreaded the thing one was bound to do, yet though he dragged his feet, he drew ever closer to the heavy doors of King Henry’s privy chamber.  
It was nighttime, and the candles in sconces lining the palace walls had burned down to stubs, strings of dried wax dangling from them like spider's webs. The overall effect was eerie and served only to deepen the chaplain's discomfiture. He knew that as the king's spiritual advisor, such tragic news was better heard from his lips, but still he found himself railing against his fate. No one ever takes pleasure in breaking his fellow man's heart, even more so when his fellow man happens to be his overlord.  
The chaplain announced himself to the guards and the knights of the privy chamber and, without divulging the specifics, stated his urgent need to confer with His Grace the king at once. The men, while bleary-eyed and chagrined at having being roused at such a late hour, must have taken note of the friar's unhealthy pallor and the slight tremor in his wizened old hands, for they ushered him to the innermost chamber with alacrity and then beat a hasty retreat, leaving the chaplain alone with the king and his terrible burden.  
King Henry had evidently not yet gone to sleep. He raised his head from the letter he had been studying by candlelight, his visage stony. His shortgown was rumpled, his fingers ink-stained, and his graying hair stood up in tufts as if he had just run nervous hands through it. He was not the traditional image of a monarch. He looked more like a middle-aged merchant, his face twisted and wrinkled with care. It was easy to see past his rich attire and the heavy signet ring on his right hand, to peel back the layers of pageantry and regality to reveal an aging, harried father, consumed with an unrelenting desire to secure his children's future. Hearing what his chaplain had come here to say would surely cripple Henry, perhaps forever, deprive him of hope, riddle his remaining years on earth with regret. They were heavy tidings indeed.  
The aged priest bowed so low, his lips touched the Turkey rug at Henry's feet. Rising, he began to speak in a low, consoling tone.  
"Your Grace, as we men are prepared to accept the blessings Our Lord bestows upon us, so we must be prepared to withstand the pitfalls he sets before us on our path to salvation."  
Henry, King of England, wailed like a broken man, a madman. He roared, cursed, dissolved into a fury of tears. He shouted for his wife, screamed his children's names, yowled oaths and obscenities at the heavens. He berated himself aloud, lamenting his many faults, his sinful human desires which had brought this evil upon his household. He fell to his knees on the floor, crying like a child. His chaplain withdrew to the corner, weeping silently into his hands, wracked with pity for his master.  
Queen Elizabeth swept into the room. "What has happened?" she demanded, her beautiful face transformed with fear. "Henry, what has come over you, my love?"  
Henry told her between sobs that seized his whole body. She bounded across the room to him, grasped him in a firm embrace. Her voice was brittle when she was finally able to speak. The chaplain admired her courage in the face of such misery. "It is God's will, Henry. We must remember this. We are bound to obey God, and whatever he wills to happen we ... must ... accept ..." She staggered to her feet then, face contorted, and rushed from the room, evidently trying to spare her husband further distress from seeing her break down in front of him. She had barely cleared the door when her own immense grief overtook her. She sank to the ground in a torrent of sobs. "Why?" was all she seemed capable of saying.  
King Henry rushed to his wife's side, his own pain temporarily forgotten as he lifted her bodily from the floor where she had crumpled, as if she were a little girl and not a woman of thirty-six years. Crouching in the rushes, he rocked her in his arms, their tears mingling on her upturned face as they both shivered with enough force to rip their souls to pieces—that is, had they not already been irrevocably torn.  
Richmond Palace grieved that night. In the morning, the woe had spread throughout London. Like the disease that had swept through the countryside, the chaplain's terrible news penetrated every English home, touching the hearts of peasant and nobleman alike. The country had lost its shining hope, its security, its saving grace.  
***  
"Your Highness, will you take your dinner now?" Doña Elvira thrust a steaming bowl under Katherine's nose, as if the bland scent of the thin broth it contained would awaken in her some ravenous appetite. She had been astonished, upon waking the day before, to discover that for over a week she had hovered at death's very doorstep, gripped by an illness that had kept her incoherent with fever, unable to sit up or eat or even remember the names of her ladies, who had loyally nursed her, bathing her forehead with cool cloths, combing snarls out of her matted hair, and keeping up a constant vigil at her bedside, ready to run and fetch the physician in case her condition worsened. She had a new appreciation for Lady Pole, who had taken it upon herself to wash Katherine's sweating, disease-ridden body with a sponge and dress her in fresh linen each evening. She had thanked her ladies profusely for saving her life, but they had all seemed strangely subdued and were reluctant to respond to her praise with more than a polite curtsy. She wondered if they feared she was still contagious.  
Maria de Salinas in particular was acting strangely. Katherine was somewhat hurt by the fact that Maria, her friend since childhood, was not simply overjoyed at her miraculous recovery. It confused and—she had to admit it to herself—annoyed her that instead of celebrating with her, Maria was acting distant and aloof, unable or unwilling to look Katherine in the eye, even as her mistress favored her by allowing her to perform the most intimate duties a lady-in-waiting could have, such as helping her unlace her corset and clamber into her bed the night before. Katherine wondered if there was a special man in Maria's life who occupied her thoughts now, though she felt betrayed by her friend for not confiding in her.  
Speculating about Maria's romantic life reminded Katherine of her own beloved husband. She had asked to see Arthur—or at least for him to be allowed to visit her—several times the day before, but each time her request was summarily denied by Doña Elvira. She recognized that Katherine was a princess and a woman now, the duenna said, but on this matter she must insist—Katherine had, by the grace of God, just escaped death, and Doña Elvira could not in good conscience put someone so recently afflicted in a position to contaminate the heir to the throne, nor could she allow Katherine to tax her strength when her health was, according to the court physician, still precarious. Katherine did not like this response, for she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around Arthur and weep with gratitude that fate had not yet separated them; still, she knew Doña Elvira's reasoning to be sound, and the last thing she ever wanted to do was put her husband at risk of contracting her illness. But today, she felt better, stronger. It couldn't hurt, she reasoned, once again to ask Doña Elvira for an audience with Arthur.  
"May I see my husband now?" she begged her nurse. She did not wait for a response: she was already swinging her legs, which were thin and wasted from her bout of illness—over the side of the bed when Doña Elvira raised a hand.  
"Your Highness may see the prince," the older woman pronounced, with an air of finality that Katherine associated with a judge making a ruling, "once you have finished your soup."  
Katherine cast a baleful glance at the rapidly cooling contents of the enameled bowl Doña Elvira still held in her hands, proffering it to her. "Very well," she said with a heavy sigh.  
Consuming the soup was a process that commanded all of Katherine's attention. The sickness seemed to have taken her appetite as well as the weight she had shed. She ate tiny spoonfuls of the unappetizing brew, which tasted slightly oniony, but mostly watery. Her bony shoulders sagged with relief when she felt the scrape of her spoon against the bottom of the bowl.  
Looking up, Katherine was surprised to see that Doña Elvira had left the room. Through the door of her bedchamber, which stood ajar, she observed most of her ladies sitting in a circle, their heads bowed over the garments they were sewing for the poor. The only other occupants of her bedroom were Lady Pole and Maria, who sat near the fire, embroidery on their laps, their gazes averted from her.  
"Lady Pole, I still feel quite weak. Would you please send one of the maids to the Prince's chambers with a message that his wife craves his company at his earliest convenience?" She waited, but though Lady Pole's hands stilled on her embroidery, she did not stand to do Katherine's bidding, nor in fact did she give any outward sign that she had heard her at all.  
"Lady Pole?" said Katherine, adopting a slightly imperious tone that she rarely had occasion to use, "please convey my message to my husband, the Prince."  
Margaret Pole finally turned to look at her, and the expression on her homely face made Katherine's heart sink. Her eyelids were red and puffy, and as she stared with haunted eyes into Katherine's own uncomprehending ones, a solitary tear began to trace its way down her pale cheek.  
"Lady Pole, are you well?" Katherine asked with alarm, slipping out of bed and coming to stand alongside her lady-in-waiting's chair. Though her legs wobbled alarmingly beneath her weight, she was too distracted by Lady Pole's plight to take much notice of her own discomfort. "What is the matter?" she probed, but Margaret Pole seemed unable to speak.  
"What is the matter?" Katherine asked the room at large, her heart pounding in her ears. "Why does no one answer me?" Her voice had taken on a shrill note.  
Maria de Salinas rose then, coming to support Katherine's weight as her knees began to knock with the effort of keeping her upright. "My lady, please do not make us tell you. We fear you are in no state to handle—"  
"Handle what?" Katherine demanded. "Maria de Salinas, if you value your position in this household, you will tell me what is amiss this second!"  
Maria's eyes were brimming now. "Oh my lady—oh, Catalina, your husband the Prince is no more! The illness that nearly took you claimed him on the second of April—the day before your fever broke."  
It was as if Katherine had been on the tiltyard and a knight had battered her chest with a lance. She was physically thrown backwards by the power of Maria's revelation. She collapsed onto the side of her bed and began to tremble.  
Maria came forward with alarm. "My Lady, are you feeling ill?" she asked, face full of concern. Katherine looked at her with pitiless eyes. How could her women—even Maria and Doña Elvira—keep this a secret from her for an entire day and night, and then part of another day? How could they? Traitors, all of them, her mind thought sluggishly. They had betrayed her out of fear. She felt as if her vision had tunneled out, as if the ocean itself were roaring in her ears, pounding her eardrums to ribbons, seeping into her very brains and turning them into a substance as bland and flat as the soup she had just forced down.  
"Out," Katherine murmured. Maria took another step forward, trying to catch her words. "Pardon, my lady?"  
"Out!" Katherine commanded harshly. "I must be alone." They needed no further prompting. All her women scattered, exiting her chambers with evident relief. Cowards, she thought dimly. Cowards.  
I might still have some hope, another part of her whispered insidiously. It was a small hope, but Katherine's fragile spirit cleaved to it. Arthur had told her that in order to conceive children, he had to deposit his seed within her, but surely he had been close enough. She remembered her disgruntlement at discovering that some of the pearly fluid had ended up on her most private parts, but now she was grateful—no, gleeful—that a part of Arthur might still be even now quickening inside her womb.  
It was as if Katherine's body had reached its limits of stress. She was still weak from sickness and starvation, and against her will, her eyelids began to droop. She slid sideways on the bed, curling into a ball, tangled in the curtains, causing them to hang askew. She slept fitfully for an indeterminate amount of time, but when she woke she was still alone, with a sudden need for the privy.  
Katherine stumbled from bed, her legs still barely able to support her. She hobbled unassisted to her privy closet, yanking open the door. There was no sound in the room but the crackling of the fire—a sound far too merry for such a black and miserable day, she thought with the weird detachment that had settled over her since Maria's confession.  
Katherine knew what she would see when she raised her nightgown. She recognized the throbbing deep in her belly, the queer feeling between her legs; yet, she did not want to believe her suspicion and put off confirming it as long as possible. When she finally did see it, the spreading stain of dark blood on her nightgown was so offensive to her, so defeating, that she had to look away again. She had known she wasn't pregnant—had known it even before she considered it. There was no part of Arthur left within her. Arthur was gone, cold, lifeless, beyond her reach. They would never embrace again, never again have the opportunity to consummate their marriage. He would never call her his "pious little wife" or his "sensible little wife" until she joined him in heaven. The place in her heart where her love for him had germinated—a love she had nurtured and cultivated like a sapling that would one day become a great, spreading tree—was now empty, empty, empty.  
Katherine fell on her face on the bedchamber floor, her state of detached numbness shattered as she bled out her last hope for a marriage she had even in its infancy struggled to preserve. She had failed—the world had failed her, and she wept and howled with the knowledge of that greatest of failures. Most of all, she wept for Arthur. He hadn't even seen his sixteenth birthday. He had taken up his duties as a husband and a sovereign with equal stoicism and grace, had guided her life as mercifully and effortlessly as he guided the government of the Welsh Marches. He had the makings of a masterful king, a loving husband, and a great man, and now his steady, gentle flame had been cruelly snuffed out.  
"God," Katherine screamed, her throat hoarse, as Doña Elvira, Maria, Lady Pole, and many others rushed to her aid, "God, deliver me from this nightmare! Make it all a dream—make it all go away!"  
The minutes ticked by, and there Katherine, the Dowager Princess of Wales, remained, a sixteen-year-old widow lying wretched and supine upon the floor.


	15. Katherine's Return to Court

1502  
Katherine fidgeted and perspired in her widow's weeds. For the third time in six months, she found herself bundled into a curtained litter which Queen Elizabeth had graciously put at her disposal for the trip back to London from Ludlow. Of course, this journey was much different than the previous ones for Katherine—where during her travels to Lambeth and then on to the Welsh Marches her heart had been light and full of anticipation, it now sat like a chunk of ice in the middle of her chest, filtering cold despair through her veins. There was no fanfare in the cities she passed through, no commoners throwing bouquets and toasting her health. On the few occasions she had felt compelled to part the curtains and peek out, if only to feel the May sunlight on her face, it was to find many onlookers lining the streets, giving her retinue a wide berth. The faces turned in her direction now only held pity, and she well understood why. She had not yet regained the weight she had lost during her illness, and her face, already pinched and pallid with intense grief, had taken on a certain hollowed-out quality. She had been lucky in a way that Queen Isabel had thought of everything when commissioning her trousseau, for she had enough black garments for a proper mourning wardrobe. Nonetheless, the Spanish-style gowns hung unflatteringly off her diminished frame, their wide skirts and billowing sleeves emphasizing her waiflike appearance. Even her vibrant hair, the only thing misery and disease could not dull about her, was completely hidden from view beneath the black widow's barb she was now expected to wear. Katherine remembered with shame how her eyes had prickled when she first caught a glimpse of her washed-out reflection in a mirror. For a moment, she felt that her undoing was complete: her health was shattered, she was without a home, husbandless, childless, and on top of it all, ugly.  
Those thoughts had only plagued Katherine momentarily, however, because just then she had caught a glimpse of Father Geraldini in the mirror's burnished silver surface, approaching her from behind, clearly sensing her distress. In the weeks since poor Arthur's death, Father Geraldini had been Katherine's constant companion, always readily available to deliver her from her torment with choice scriptures and gentle admonitions not to question the will of God. In these dire times, Katherine cleaved more than ever to her strong Catholic faith. Religion was the balm that soothed her soul in a place where her pain ran so deep, no one and nothing else could penetrate it. She wondered what Father Geraldini would say if he knew how shallow she was being right now. How could she have vain thoughts about her appearance when her husband even now lay shut up in a box, moldering beneath the earth?  
As per tradition, neither Katherine nor any other members of the royal family were permitted to attend Arthur's funeral. She had not been there when the members of his household broke their staves of office and tossed them into the grave, symbolically freeing themselves from his service. She had not been able to take comfort in knowing that God was with Arthur's soul when his funeral mass was sung. All she had been able to do was prostrate herself before the altar in the deserted chapel at Ludlow, praying for his dear soul as her confessor stood by, resting a fatherly hand on her bowed head. How would she ever overcome this vast emptiness in her heart? she wondered as her litter jostled along the road to London. What would become of her now? Please God, do not let my father decide to make a nun of me, she prayed. Though she loved and feared God and prayed the rosary daily, she knew in her bones that within her, there was no religious vocation. Katherine wanted to be a wife and a mother, and though she could not imagine marrying anytime soon, she knew that once the pain of Arthur's passing had ceased to be so raw, she would like to try again. It was only normal for a woman, after all.  
Thinking of King Ferdinand made Katherine's stomach roll with nerves. She had not heard from her father since she had written to him, at Arthur's insistence, concerning her plate. Before Arthur's death, she had feared that Ferdinand was angry at her, for in essence she had cost him a great deal of money. Now, though, after everything she had gone through recently, her father's silence bothered her even more. Why had he not yet summoned her back to Spain? She had no more reason to stay in England. In fact, she had remained at Ludlow for several weeks awaiting her father's summons to no avail. Only when May had arrived and the plants in the castle gardens began to bloom did she send a letter to the king, asking to be allowed to return to court.  
It had been Queen Elizabeth, not King Henry, who had responded to her plaintive request, as well as sending along the litter, draped in black, which would convey her to Richmond Palace. The queen's letter, which Margaret Pole had translated into Latin for her, was surprisingly warm and maternal in its tone. In part, it had read: "I know that you too have suffered a crushing loss, and I hope that we can be a comfort to one another during these most troubling times." Katherine had appreciated Elizabeth's kindness, but doubted she would be at court long enough for either of them to benefit much from commiserating over Arthur's death.  
The procession stopped at an abbey for the night, and the gray-habited monks escorted Katherine to their best available chamber, a drafty but clean room with spartan furnishings that looked to be over a century old. Though she was exhausted from the long ride in the heat, she knew getting to sleep would be no easy task. Though she and Arthur had only spent one full night together, she seemed to feel his absence more acutely when lying alone in her bed. She imagined that her loss would be easier to bear if she was not always expecting to turn around from brushing her hair in the mirror and find herself face to face with her husband or pull the bed curtains aside and discover him there, waiting for her, his gray eyes mirthful as he asked, "Did you honestly believe I could leave you so soon, my silly little wife?" She had not been there with him when he took his last breath, though her ladies had told her he probably would not have recognized his own mother at that point, so deep was his delirium. She had not held his hand as his blood cooled in his veins. What if it was all some awful, elaborate prank? She knew this to be irrational thinking, but it seemed of late that the workings of her logical mind were drowned out by the clamoring of her damaged spirit and frayed nerves.  
Sometime late in the night, Katherine fell asleep. She dreamed that she was in the middle of a vast and beautiful meadow with grass as green as emeralds and as soft to the touch as velvet. Instead of wildflowers, red and white Tudor roses sprouted from the ground, their thorny stems tangling haphazardly. Instead of normal fruit, the branches of all the trees were laden with scarlet pomegranates festooned with gilded coronets that glimmered in the summer sunlight. Katherine stood on the bank of a stream so clear, she could see her own face, devoid of a widow's veil, reflected in its shimmering surface. Many-hued fishes leapt out of the water, giggling with the voices of human children as they somersaulted in midair, each of their scales reflecting a tiny rainbow in the sunlight. Katherine was so mesmerized by her surroundings that for a moment, she did not notice the person standing across the bubbling stream from her. When she did, she was somehow not surprised to see Arthur, his arms outstretched to her, his expression tender.  
"There you are, Katherine. I've been waiting for you to join me." She watched his mouth form the words, but the laughing of the fishes, the splashing of the water, and the rustling of the wind in the leaves created a racket that drowned out his voice. Katherine took a step forward. The hem of her dress trailed in the shallow water. "I have wanted to be with you ever since you left, Arthur. I promise," she told him, feeling that she needed to convince him of her loyalty, to assure him that his absence was like a thorn in her heart.  
The stream was only ankle deep—she could easily wade across to him. As if reading her thoughts, Arthur gestured to her, beckoning her forward. "Katherine, I need you," he mouthed.  
She needed no further prompting. She stepped into the water. Immediately, her feet began to go numb with cold, for the water was frigid, far too cold for summer. Still, it was such a short distance to her husband, whose arms were now held out to her, waiting to pull her onto the bank beside him. She wanted to feel his touch so badly, needed the stability that he provided. She continued to slosh through the water. The laughing fishes surrounded her, swimming in tight, almost frenzied circles about her legs. The cold seemed to be spreading throughout her body, rising higher and higher up her legs. Glancing down, Katherine noticed that the water level was now halfway up her calves, but she tried not to let this alarm her too much. She had merely misjudged the depth of the stream at its center.  
Arthur still stood on the bank, his eyes full of longing, but Katherine realized that he seemed just as far away now as he had minutes earlier. Surely she should have made some headway by now. The first trickle of fear slid down Katherine's spine. The water was at her knees now, but she couldn't give up—not with her dear husband looking at her that way—yet the harder she tried to cross the stream, the faster the current seemed to become, the thicker the fish began to crowd around her. The water was at waist, then chest level. Looking up, she saw that Arthur's face was beginning to pale, almost to wither. Katherine was paddling now, trying to keep her head above water, and still she was no closer to the opposite bank. The last thing she saw before the water closed over her was the ghoulish specter of Arthur's face, its translucent skin stretched tight over a grinning skull.  
The pillow was wet with tears when Katherine awoke. Maria was shaking her awake. "My lady, Doña Elvira has sent me to rouse you," her friend said. "If we leave this place soon, we will make it to Richmond by midday."  
Katherine sat up, groggy and confused. Was she ready to face Arthur's family yet? She had not expected the journey from Ludlow to pass so quickly. How should she behave? How could she comfort them when she was still reeling herself?  
Immediately upon their arrival at Richmond Palace, a liveried servant of the queen was sent to escort Katherine to her chambers. She had expected Elizabeth to appear at least as haggard as she herself did, but instead she found her as graceful and polished as ever. Only by studying her face for a long time could Katherine discern subtle signs that something was amiss: Elizabeth had shadows around her eyes that Katherine did not remember from the last time she had seen her; the fine lines around her eyes and mouth seemed to have deepened just a fraction. Nevertheless, when Katherine made her obeisance before Elizabeth, the queen raised her with a gentle hand and, quite startling Katherine, pulled her into a tender, motherly embrace. They held one another for a prolonged amount of time, Katherine's head resting against the queen's small, damask-covered bosom. She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. No one but Arthur had hugged her this way since her parting embrace with her mother, nearly nine months before. When they separated, Katherine noticed wetness had also gathered in Elizabeth's cerulean eyes.  
In her poor French, the queen addressed her former daughter-in-law. "I know that you will probably not be with us much longer, as I expect any day your father will send for you, but until then, Katherine, I wish to be as a mother to you. It is what my son would have wanted." She blinked rapidly in an attempt to dispel the moisture from her eyes.  
"I am most grateful, Your Grace," Katherine murmured. She couldn't imagine how hard the past weeks had been for Elizabeth. How wretched one must feel after losing one's firstborn child.  
"Will you join me in some embroidery?" the queen asked, swiping at her teary eyes with the back of her hand. "I have been working on an altar frontal."  
Realizing that Elizabeth was making a valiant effort to turn the conversation to lighter things, Katherine sent one of her maids to fetch her sewing basket and sat next to the queen in a high-backed chair. Their heads bent in concentration, each of them holding one end of the snowy altar cloth, they passed the next half hour in relative silence, their needles flashing in and out as they embroidered intricate designs in black thread, until a manservant, his garments stamped with the king's coat of arms, appeared in the doorway and bowed perfunctorily to Katherine.  
"Your Highness," said the man, "His Grace the king requests that you attend him in his private library."  
Katherine looked to the queen for permission to leave, which Elizabeth granted with a wave of her elegant hand. "Please, once your conference with my husband is finished, return here and join me for dinner," she said softly, returning her attention to her embroidery.  
Katherine followed the king's servant from the room, her heart fluttering with trepidation. She had been planning to avoid King Henry at all costs, for in truth she was not sure she could restrain herself from lashing out at him. Though she knew it was unfair, not to mention treasonous to think so, she privately blamed Henry for Arthur's demise. Had he not been so consumed with greed, he might not have sent Arthur and Katherine to Ludlow, and they may not have caught the sickness that ruined Katherine's health and stole Arthur's life. His scheming had cost him his heir and Katherine her husband, and for that, she sometimes thought she hated him.  
Katherine's anger was slightly assuaged when she beheld King Henry for the first time. He was seated in a vast chair at a handsome wooden desk, his head bent over a piece of paper as he concentrated on writing a letter. He did not appear to be bearing up under the loss of Arthur as well as his wife was. His hair was even more grizzled than it had been months earlier, and his posture and expression were that of a man who knew himself defeated. His hooded eyes were lost in deep shadows, and the lavishly embroidered black doublet he wore was an even worse fit for him than Katherine's mourning gown was for her. He looked up at her morosely when she entered the room.  
"Fetch a chair for Her Highness the Dowager Princess, and then leave us," the king commanded his servant, who rushed to do his bidding and then disappeared through the heavy library door, leaving Katherine alone with him in the close silence.  
Henry sighed. "You look awful, Katherine," he said in his usual brusque manner.  
Katherine shrugged. She decided to match his candor, feeling it the best approach to take. "As does Your Grace, if I am being honest," she said flatly.  
A ghost of his vulpine smile flickered across the king's face. "I can well understand why my son loved you so well, Katherine. Straightforwardness is a rare and admirable trait in women."  
"Your son loved you very much, as well," she rejoined, unable to keep an edge of bitterness from creeping into her voice . "More than that, he trusted you to have his best interests at heart—and by extension, those of his wife." She was satisfied to see the royal head lower a little in shame.  
"I am sorry, Katherine. I am sorry you have been ill, and I am sorry Arthur is gone. I wish I could have foreseen the danger ahead and somehow diverted it," he said, meeting her eyes.  
Katherine stared straight back at him, not ready to let her grievances go. "What would you have done if I hadn't had my own plate and furnishings? That castle was a cold and drafty place. Would you have let Arthur and I freeze to death?" Her eyes bored into his until he was forced to look away.  
"I would have sent you provisions if Arthur requested them," he protested, "but you had your plate, so there was no need—"  
"And I suppose that now that the plate has been used, you will be requesting its value in coin from my father?" she interrupted sharply. "You do realize that now that I am a widow, he will be expecting me and my dowry to be returned to Spain."  
Henry's eyes narrowed. "Not if you are carrying the heir to the English throne," he said coolly, and Katherine realized that not even grief could make him cease his plotting. If he could prove there was even a chance Katherine was pregnant, he could force her—and her dowry—to remain in England for at least eight months, plenty of time in which to secret away her father's riches.  
She glared at him.  
"That is impossible, Your Grace, as I am still a virgin. Arthur never touched me, as I am sure you well know already." It was not strictly true, but Katherine knew she was not with child, and she was desperate to get away—away from her pain and loneliness, away from this twisted man who viewed everything and everyone as a pawn. She wanted to go home, to be embraced by her real mother, to be advised by her father, to find another husband.  
"You may go, madam," said Henry VII with deadly calm. "I will dispatch a letter to King Ferdinand arranging your return at once."  
***  
As soon as Katherine had gone, Henry VII resumed hurriedly scratching words onto the parchment with his quill. The wench's impudence had rattled him, as well as the penetrating way she had of looking at him, as though she could mine the depths of his very soul, nevertheless, two hundred thousand ducats far outweighed any discomfort a teenage girl could cause him. He couldn't let Ferdinand's wwealth slip through his fingers. He concluded his letter to the king of Spain thus:  
We have spoken with the Princess Dowager this day, and she has confirmed our suspicions that nothing unchasteever passed between Her Highness and our sainted son, the Prince. Though we must now acknowledge that there is no hope that Her Highness is carrying an heir to England's throne in her belly, we may now present Your Grace with a new proposal. We will of course provide Her Highness passage back to her homeland, if that is what Your Grace still desires, or she may remain with us as our daughter until such a time as Prince Henry, the new heir, is of an age to be wed. We have come to love the Princess Katherine and would still welcome her as our daughter-in-law. No dowry would be required, as we would simply retain both the coin and the plate Your Grace sent with Her Highness for her marriage to the departed Arthur. We will be anxiously awaiting Your Grace's decision on the matter.  
His task completed, Henry sat back in his chair, signing off in Latin as Henricus Rex, Henry the King, with a flourish. If all went according to plan, Ferdinand would agree to allow him to retain custody of Katherine, the Spanish alliance would be preserved, young Henry would soon have a bride, and the dowry would be safely within his coffers.


	16. The Engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens ... Mwahahahaha! Please, comment your thoughts and critiques. I live for your feedback. XOXO VBC

1503  
The seventeen-year-old Dowager Princess of Wales finished the last stitch on the coif she had been embroidering, tied off the black silk thread, stretched it and broke off the excess with her teeth. Stealing a sidelong glance at Maria de Salinas, who sat next to her, a red satin kirtle spread across her lap, she saw her friend yawn and shift her weight on her wooden stool with evident boredom.  
"At least it is a princess's clothes, and not gray wool," whispered Katherine, trying for a smile. Ever since her arrival at Richmond Palace the previous May, Katherine's days had consisted of painstakingly sewing clothes for the poor in Queen Elizabeth's chambers, all out of the same cheap, undyed gray wool. Because she was a widow, it was improper for Katherine or her ladies to partake in many activities, including dancing, enjoying court entertainments such as masques, watching knights joust at the tiltyard, or wearing any color but black. Besides needlework, the only other pastimes available to them were praying, reading, or gossiping, something her Spanish ladies could rarely enjoy, being both separated by miles of ocean from their families and childhood friends and from the rest of the court by the hawkish eye of Doña Elvira, who seemed to thrive on the almost convent-like regulations Katherine's household now operated under.  
Katherine's English attendants had escaped from this sober existence early on. She remembered her impotent rage when Henry VII decided to disperse the English portion of her household so as to avoid paying their wages. Everyone was sent home, including the trustworthy Margaret Pole, with whom Katherine had developed a friendship to rival that of Maria de Salinas and herself. Her only consolation, at the time, was that soon she and her remaining servants would be returned to their homeland and families. She longed to embrace Queen Isabel, to sob out her grief onto her mother's shoulder as if she were a little child once again. Though the pain of Arthur's death had lessened considerably since those first, unbearable weeks, Katherine still occasionally found herself awoken suddenly in the middle of the night from a dream that he had been holding her again, only to find herself alone in her too-large bed with the fire burnt down to coals and some poor maid shivering in her sleep on a pallet on the floor. At these times, it felt to Katherine that her heart had once again been smote in two by her husband's untimely death.  
Lifting the now-finished head covering from her lap, Katherine passed it along the circle of women for each lady, and finally the queen, to inspect for errors. The movement caused the cloak she had spread across her knees like a blanket to stave off the January cold to slip aside, revealing the new black silk kirtle beneath. Katherine had resisted ordering new mourning clothes from the queen's tailors for as long as possible, still believing that shortly, she would be summoned back to the Spanish court, where English gowns were viewed as unattractively immodest. In the meantime, she continued to lose weight as her Spanish dresses grew shabbier and shabbier. She did not know whether it was Arthur's death, residual effects from her dire illness, or the pervading ennui she felt that caused the decline in her appetite, but when the old gowns hung loosely on her even with the stays pulled as tight as they would go by her duenna's hard hands, Doña Elvira personally wrote to Elizabeth, begging her to intervene. Thus, Katherine had recently found herself the owner of three new, black gowns in sumptuous materials with trailing court trains and trumpet-shaped sleeves, as well as four kirtles, new leather slippers and riding boots, and two heavy winter cloaks lined in softest sable. She had had only one request for the tailors: that no jewels or goldsmith's work be added to her mourning weeds. The only jewels she permitted herself to wear since her return to court were her crucifix, studded with five rubies representing the five wounds of Christ, and Arthur's golden locket with his picture inside, the last gift from her mother and the first from her late husband. I am not the plump and prancing peacock who alighted on the shore at Plymouth all those months ago, she thought. How much one could be reduced in so short a time.  
"Katherine, this is superb work," congratulated the queen, her corpulent form teetering dangerously on the edge of her chair as she leaned forward to drop the coif into a basket at her feet. Katherine had been lucky to have Margaret Pole in her service for as long as she did, for though she still spoke with a heavy accent, her English had improved to the point that she could understand the queen well and respond to her with relative ease. Now that their conversations were not cramped by a language barrier, Katherine had discovered that she and Elizabeth had a great deal in common, though the queen was rather less studious or ambitious than herself. They liked sewing, children, and long walks outdoors, and by September, the month poor Arthur would have been turning sixteen, she and her remaining ladies had become a fixture in the queen's privy chamber. Next to the king, she had been the first person Elizabeth had confided her pregnancy to, and the two of them had embraced as tenderly as mother and daughter when the baby had first begun to kick in November. Being the youngest of her parents' children, Katherine had little experience with pregnancy or childbirth, so she was lucky that Elizabeth, who had borne six children—though she had now only three living—was such a good-natured and relaxed mother. As more weeks passed without any word from King Ferdinand, Katherine supposed that she might be in attendance at the queen's confinement, which would commence at the beginning of February, in preparation for an early March birth. She glanced down at her own flat belly, feeling suddenly as empty as an onion jacket. She wondered how old she would be before God granted her her first child. Elizabeth had been twenty. That was only three years away, but Katherine saw those years as a continuous bolt of plain, gray wool. She would surely go insane if she had to wait three years—or even longer—for marriage and children. Why had King Ferdinand not written to her?  
"Let us have done with this for now," commanded the queen, bracing herself on the arms of her chair and clamboring to her feet, the stomacher of her slate-blue gown fully unlaced over her rounded belly. She had not become swollen and miserable, like most pregnant women. On the contrary, she appeared to Katherine even more serene and unflappable than ever. Pregnancy, like everything else, suited her.  
"What would Your Grace like to do now?" Katherine asked, rising. "Shall I have Maria, who is skilled with her virginals, play us one of her original compositions?"  
"Thank you, Katherine, but I feel the need to stretch my legs. Would you and your women accompany me on a walk through the palace gardens?"  
"Your Grace," piped up Doña Elvira, and Katherine flushed with embarrassment. She knew that her duenna was going to chide the queen, something Elizabeth put up with good-humoredly, but something it was beyond her authority to do nonetheless.  
"It is imprudent," Doña Elvira said sternly, her chins beginning to shake, "for Your Grace to be out in the cold so far into your pregnancy. Her Highness Katherine is also of a weak constitution and should be kept indoors as much as possible during the winter months."  
"You catch one little fever two months ago and she brings it up everytime she doesn't want to get her chins cold," Maria grumbled next to her. Katherine stifled a laugh.  
"Madam, I sympathize with your concerns," said Elizabeth evenly. "I can assure you that the Dowager Princess and I will not travel far. I believe that a brisk walk will do us good, not harm. Are you in agreement, Katherine?"  
"I am, Your Grace," Katherine said brightly, jumping to her feet and spreading her cloak over her shoulders before Doña Elvira could protest further.  
Katherine hated the earliest months of the year. The damp and cold were easier to abide when one had the Yuletide season to occupy one's attentions, but the stretch of time from New Year's to Easter was the bleakest of the year for Katherine. As she, the queen, and their ladies spilled out into the gardens that surrounded Richmond, Katherine struggled to find something beautiful about the harsh landscape before her. Frequent sleet had turned the well-tilled earth of the gardens into frosty black mud from which nothing living sprouted. The trees looked as thin and blighted as she herself felt, their branches stripped bare of foliage. In the pale sunlight, the palace seemed an austere, uninviting structure. Only Queen Elizabeth appeared radiant, her cheeks coloring prettily as she walked against the frigid wind, two maids holding up her train so it would not become soiled from dragging on the ground.  
Katherine had never been able to tolerate much exposure to cold, an aversion which had only deepened as she became thinner. She shivered violently, her teeth chattering so hard, she feared they might break. She fell further and further behind Elizabeth and her entourage until finally she was forced to stop and rest on a stone bench near a trellis that by spring would be festooned with a riot of climbing ivy. She rubbed her hands together vigorously, attempting to regain some blood-flow to her numb fingertips.  
"Are you cold, Princess Katherine?" Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin. The voice sounded eerily like Arthur's. Glancing up, she was relieved not to see the floating shade of her dead husband, but instead found herself blinking up into the laughing eyes of his brother, Henry, the new Prince of Wales.  
Katherine had only very occasionally caught a glimpse of Henry since arriving at Richmond. His father, evidently fearing that a similar fate would befall him as his older brother, kept him sequestered in his chambers with his tutors, who were now attempting to teach him the things Arthur had learned at a much younger age in preparation for his eventual kingship. Rarely, Katherine would see him with the Princesses Margaret and Mary, though the former was now busy in her own right, preparing for her wedding to the King of Scots, and the latter, at seven years of age, was still largely confined to the nursery. In the months since they had spoken—before Katherine's departure with Arthur to Ludlow—Henry had grown taller, his shoulders broadening, his face losing some of its babylike chubbiness. His voice, as Katherine had just discovered, had also deepened somewhat, though it was still rather high—higher, she realized, than Arthur's had been. How easily one forgets even simple details of one's lost loved ones, she thought sadly.  
"Katherine," said Henry, playfully plucking her sleeve, "did you hear what I asked you? I asked you if you were cold." He stretched out the word "cold," getting right up near her face as if she were deaf—or a dullard.  
"I am," she said, laughing at his insolence in spite of yourself. "But you must learn to speak properly to a lady."  
"You are more than a lady to me, Katherine," he said, dancing from foot to foot in a manner characteristic of an excited eleven-year-old. "You are my fiancée."  
Katherine's eyebrows shot up. "You're what?" she spluttered, so taken aback that her discomfort was temporarily forgotten.  
"My father did not know that I was hiding in the library when he was talking to Dr de Puebla," Henry said archly. "I heard him tell the doctor himself. He told him that someone named Estrada was drafting the marriage treaty that very moment."  
He must mean the Duque de Estrada, Katherine thought. Another of her parent's representatives in England, Maria had come to Katherine months earlier complaining that he had been making discrete inquiries of the maids as to whether or not Katherine and Arthur had indeed consummated their marriage. At the time, Katherine had been sure that it was because her parents had been concerned that she might be pregnant with Arthur's child, though she had written to her father explicitly denying that it could be possible. Now, though, with Henry's revelation, Katherine's interpretation of Estrada's actions seemed to have been faulty. But how could it be true? She looked at Henry, who was now bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was still a child—a precocious, well-developed child, but a child nonetheless. She, on the other hand, was a grown woman, who had been wed, then widowed, a woman who knew love and grief and duty. How could her parents think to allow her to be married to this boy five and a half years younger than her?  
They must not care, Katherine realized. Her parents' silence, their apparent disregard of her increasingly desperate letters asking when she was to return home now made perfect sense to her. No doubt, she was to remain in England, sewing Princess Margaret's wedding trousseau and clothes for Elizabeth's child—and whatever subsequent royal children there would be—whiling away her best years, years that she could spend filling some nobleman's home with lusty children, waiting for this prince, the very brother of her poor, dead Arthur, to become a man.  
"Katherine, aren't you happy?" Henry beseeched her as the silence between them stretched as long and dark as Katherine imagined the next five years or more to be. When she did not reply, he stormed away from her, leaving his cloak behind, tossed haphazardly across the bench beside her.


	17. Elizabeth

1503  
A scream in the dark. That was the first thing Katherine heard upon waking. Maria de Salinas was shaking her vigorously.  
"My Lady," Maria whispered harshly, "you must rise at once and attend upon Her Grace the Queen."  
Katherine jumped to her feet, searching beside the bed for a robe to wrap around herself. Her modest bedchamber, adjoining the queen's in the Tower of London, was pitch black.  
"I need a candle," she snapped, her nerves taut with fear. Surely the babe could not be coming this early. It was the second of February, and she, Maria, and every female member of Elizabeth's household had only been lodging in the Tower awaiting Her Grace's lying-in for less than a fortnight. Within the queen's rooms at the medieval fortress, they lived in a state of constant dimness and close heat. The floors were covered with plush carpets, the walls and even the windows hung with tapestries displaying scenes meant to promote fertility and easy birth. It was not considered healthy for a woman near her time to breathe fresh air, so the rooms remained dark and stuffy. Katherine's eyes had become accustomed to the lack of light, and she thought herself the only person glad not to be assaulted by the blasting winter winds.  
Her fingers brushed the edge of her velvet robe, and she tugged it out from its trunk beneath the bed. "Maria, is Her Grace ill?" she asked, donning the robe and turning to face her lady-in-waiting.  
"No, My Lady. The child is coming," Maria said urgently. "Her Grace is asking for you to attend on her."  
Katherine's heart sank. "But it is too early," she said. "Has the midwife been summoned? Can’t she delay her labor for at least a few days?"  
"The midwife came already, when the pains first began. She has tried all her potions and poultices, but nothing has worked. It should not be much longer now," Maria told her. "It is not going easy for the queen—you must go to her, Catalina."  
Katherine raced from the room. The poor queen! At the threshold of her chamber, she sank to her knees and offered a brief but plaintive prayer to God and the Blessed Virgin. "Please," she murmured, clasping her hands together so tightly, her nails dug into her flesh, "let the child and his mother live. She has other children who depend on her, and the country depends on this infant’s survival."  
Elizabeth was lying flat on her bed, sweat pouring from her furrowed brow as she strained and moaned. Her ladies were gathered around her, some sitting and chafing her hands, some telling her consoling stories about their own travails, some running back and forth with steaming basins and hippocras for her to drink. All of them were, like Katherine, dressed in their nightrails, caps askew and hair unkempt. The queen's labor must have come on quickly indeed, she thought.  
"Katherine, my daughter," the queen said in a strained voice, beckoning her to her bedside. Katherine ran to her and made to curtsy, but Elizabeth caught her hand and pulled her close so that she could whisper in her ear.  
"This is unlike any of my other births," Elizabeth confided, her breathing shallow. "Even Arthur did not cause me such pain, and I labored for a day and two nights to bring him forth." She broke off as another contraction wracked her slender body, causing her to emit a scream like nothing Katherine had ever heard before. Katherine noticed the midwife, a stout, middle-aged woman with hard, nimble hands, lean over the foot of the bed.  
"Your Grace, it will not be long now. Soon, you will have to push," said the midwife dispassionately, apparently the only person in the room not affected by Elizabeth's agony. Katherine wondered how many children she had brought into the world, and conversely, how many mothers she had seen leave it. The thought made her shudder with foreboding.  
"Katherine, listen to me," Elizabeth demanded, her pupils dilated with terror. "I have a bad feeling about this birth. It is too soon, and I have already heard the midwife say that I am bleeding too much. You must promise me that if I die—"  
"No!" Katherine raised her hand to stop the terrible words from escaping Elizabeth's cracked lips. She would hear no more. Her eyes began to brim as she thought of losing this woman who had shown such kindness to her, who had been a buffer between her and the desolate existence she now led as a foreigner in a land that had forgotten her. How could she survive without Elizabeth's gentle companionship? Her mind flashed first to King Henry, then the young princesses, and finally to the Prince of Wales, whose very existence she had for the past month tried to put out of her mind. What would the king do without his wife to temper his devious nature? What would Margaret and Mary do without their mother to teach them what a woman must behave like? What would Prince Henry do?  
"Katherine, heed me!" Elizabeth said, but she was cut short by another painful contraction.  
"Get ready to push, Your Grace!" cried the midwife. Katherine caught sight of her hands, glazed with blood, and her stomach turned.  
"You have to take care of my children," Elizabeth panted, arching her back and moaning even as she gripped Katherine's fingers with the force of a vice. "It is what Arthur would want you to do." She screamed and bore down against the burden in her womb as the surrounding attendants formed a knot at the foot of her bed and the midwife exclaimed, "I can see the head, Your Grace!"  
"Listen to what I say, Elizabeth," Katherine said fervently, forgetting in the fraught moment to use her mother-in-law's proper title. "You will not die this day—you cannot die this day. You will give England a prince, and you will rest, and you will regain your strength. This is nothing new to you—you have come through six births already."  
"But none was like this," Elizabeth groaned, preparing to push once again. "Katherine, I am in the most terrible pain. I pray God I will soon be delivered and will join my sainted parents and my poor Arthur in heaven."  
"Don't talk like that!" Katherine nearly wailed. "You cannot give up, Elizabeth."  
"One more push, Your Grace!" the midwife cried bracingly. "Your prince has nearly arrived."  
One final, drawn-out scream issued from the mouth of Elizabeth of York, ripping the very fabric of the air. Everyone fell silent as the midwife straightened. Clasped between her soiled hands, its crumpled pink face covered in gore, was a tiny, premature infant. There was a breathless moment as the midwife cleaned the infant's face and mouth, and then its mewling cries filled the air, as did the collective sighs of everyone present. This child of England had been born alive.  
"A healthy princess, Your Grace," said the midwife, cleaning the babe and handing it to its mother to look at. It—she is so small, Katherine marveled as Elizabeth lifted each of her daughter's little limbs in turn, scrutinizing the pudgy fingers and toes.  
"I will call her Katherine," said Elizabeth, softly kissing the top of the little princess's downy head. She turned to face the child's namesake. "You shall be the godmother, and you must watch over her and her siblings when I am gone," she commanded, with the faintest trace of her characteristic noble bearing.  
Katherine rushed forward. "Your Grace, you are alive! The princess Katherine is alive—everything is well!" But even as she said it, the color was draining from Elizabeth's face, leaving her nearly the same hue of white as the crisp linen nightgown that was hitched up around her waist. Her breathing had become quick and labored, and suddenly Katherine noticed the foul stench that hung over the room like a pall. It was the smell of blood.  
Katherine whirled to face the midwife, who stood stony-faced, having not left her post at the foot of the queen's bed. "What is wrong with her?" she yelled, feeling the bblood rush to her head. This could not be happening! Surely Elizabeth's fears had been unfounded, brought on by pain and fatigue.  
"Come and see, Princess," the midwife said heavily. Katherine joined her, and with horror watched as a red stain formed and spread on the sheets between Elizabeth's parted legs. "You have to stop it!" she screamed at the midwife, reaching out and shaking the woman's shoulders. "Make her stop bleeding!"  
The midwife stepped back but did not look in any other way cowed. "There is nothing I can do," she said, throwing up her hands in defeat.  
"Katherine," Elizabeth wheezed from the head of the bed. "Please, Katherine—I know I do not have long. Please, promise me you will do your best to protect my children."  
"No," Katherine moaned, the tears spilling down her cheeks. "You can't ... You can't ..."  
"Swear, Katherine. Swear that you will do your best to help my family. Swear your loyalty to my children. Swear!" Elizabeth cried, her face now paper-white, the lips acquiring an alarming, bluish tint.  
"I ... I swear," whispered Katherine, trembling.  
Elizabeth subsided upon the bed. "Somebody send for my husband, and then leave me. Convey the new princess to her wetnurse." She looked at the midwife. "I do not begrudge you, woman. You have done a competent job. Sadly, things like this happen sometimes."  
"Your Grace, please," Katherine begged, kneeling at the queen's bedside. "Please, muster your courage. Your children need you."  
"My children need you, Katherine. Especially my Henry. You will be a good wife to him, I know it. You were a good wife to my Arthur." Elizabeth's eyelids were beginning to droop.  
The thought of Prince Henry twisted Katherine's stomach into knots. How could she look his mother in the eye, on her deathbed, and promise to be good to him when the truth was that she wanted no such thing. She prayed daily that God would somehow divert this terrible fate, that some political shift would occur that would force King Henry to look elsewhere for a bride for his son.  
"I know you do not want my son," Elizabeth said weakly. The tinge of humor in her voice startled Katherine. She raised her tearstained face to meet the queen's penetrating gaze.  
"My Henry is but a boy," the queen continued, stopping frequently to draw in ragged breaths. "What he needs right now is a gentle woman to guide him as a mother might. He can think of love later. You must try to love him, Katherine. You must think of him first, even before yourself. You must devote your very breath to him. If you have to forfeit your life so that he may live, then you must make a brave end and never show fear. That is what a loyal wife does."  
"I can't ..." Katherine whispered, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.  
"You must," Elizabeth said cuttingly, "or Arthur's love was wasted on you."  
Katherine felt as though the dying queen had struck her across the face. She opened her mouth to protest, but at that very moment King Henry burst in, his clothes all askew, his face gray with fear. "Everyone out!" he shouted, literally sweeping ladies this way and that with his wiry arms in his haste to reach Elizabeth's side.  
Katherine shook with sobs as Maria gently led her from the room. As soon as Maria closed the chamber door, she fell to her knees for the second time that night. This time, she knew her prayers for Elizabeth to be futile. Soon enough, England would be without a queen.


	18. Katherine and Prince Henry

1503  
"Shall I come with you, My Lady?" Maria asked, handing Katherine her cloak and hood. Katherine shook her head. She needed to be alone for a space. For well over a week now, she and the queen's women had kept up a constant vigil beside her body in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist within the Tower of London, only leaving her side to eat and sleep. Now that poor Elizabeth had been conducted to her final resting place, Katherine could no longer ignore her lungs’ yearning for fresh air and her skin’s for sunlight.  
Though it was late February, a light flurry of snow had come swirling down from the heavens the night before and powdered the Tower gardens with white. The afternoon sunlight reflected off the individual crystals, and Katherine, seating herself on a bench near a stand of bare trees imagined how beautiful Elizabeth would have found the scene.  
There had been a moment when everyone thought the queen was going to survive her ordeal. The midwife had gotten her bleeding under control, and days after her labor, Elizabeth had been well enough to hold her child again and converse with Katherine about such trivial matters as favorite flowers and new French fashions that were making their way into the English court. No mention was made of the oath she had extracted from Katherine on the night of the little princess's birth. The ladies, az well as the king, who visited several times daily, had breathed a collective sigh of relief.  
Then the infection had set in. The midwife wrung her hands, unable to believe that the patient whom she had brought back from the brink of death had yet again become critically ill. Elizabeth grew feverish and then violently sick, vomiting until only bile was left in her stomach, and then nothing at all. Katherine took turns with her other ladies, combing her hair, forcing tiny sips of weak broth beyond her chapped lips, and lifting her off the bed so the maids could change the sheets. At the very end, she was delirious, calling out for her dead brothers, the ill-fated Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, and even for her Uncle Dickon, whom her women told Katherine was actually Richard III, the man likely behind their murders. She also cried out for Arthur, at which times Katherine was forced to flee the fetid chamber in tears. It came almost as a blessing when Elizabeth finally succumbed to the infection in her womb on the eleventh of February, her thirty-seventh birthday.  
Katherine closed her eyes, remembering the wails and sobs of the queen's loyal attendants. She remembered the tormented face of Princess Margaret, who came to bid her mother a final farewell, each of her hands clutching that of one of her living siblings. Poor Princess Mary stared wide-eyed at the corpse of her mother, who in death looked as placid as in life, almost as though she were merely sleeping and not gone from her family's lives forever.  
Prince Henry better understood the scene before him. As Margaret stood by, her face soaked with silent tears, he roared his grief into the sheets of his mother's death bed. Katherine herself was moved to a fresh bout of weeping by the image of the motherless boy burying his curly head in the queen's unfeeling bosom. Though she still could not make herself approach him, her heart broke with his suffering.  
It had appeared that the court had reached its limit of sorrow, for no one but Katherine seemed to feel anything when it was announced that the infant princess had also been claimed by death a mere week after her mother's passing. Her dreams were haunted by visions of all the people she had lost in the past—the gentle Arthur, her beautiful brother Juan, Elizabeth, the most perfect queen, and even the tiny girl that had been given her name. She had not seen King Henry since Elizabeth died. The gossip amongst the ladies-in-waiting was that he had confined himself to his library at Richmond and would only allow his meals to be brought to him by his mother, Margaret Beaufort. There were also whispers that he had taken ill himself. What will this country do if the king too is taken? Katherine thought. Surely, Prince Henry could not rule alone. Would the council appointed to make decisions in his stead support the alliance with Spain? Or were the rumors she heard true, that the king's privy council was now clamoring for a French bride for the prince? Would she be sent home after all? Could she escape the burden of her promise to Elizabeth?  
Sinful, cowardly, treasonous, she berated herself. How could she be thinking to gain from the death of another of the poor prince's family members? She had to resign herself to the fate God had ordinaed for her.  
"You couldn't stand it either?" a small voice asked from near her ear. Katherine opened her eyes slowly, knowing who it was she would see before she looked up.  
Prince Henry stood before her, clad in a rumpled doublet she remembered from two days ago when she had last seen him. His red-gold hair was untidy, his blue eyes bloodshot. She gestured for him to join her on her bench, but he didn't move.  
"I know you do not like me, Katherine," he said tonelessly. "I even understand why. I am nothing like Arthur. Arthur was supposed to be the heir. Father made sure he was learned and polite and a good dancer and good at conversation. He was handsome and clever and so kind and good, you couldn't even dislike him for being so perfect. Why would anyone want me when they have already had him?"  
Katherine's mouth fell open. She floundered for a response, but found none because, in essence, Henry was right. Everything about the proposed marriage with him felt to her like a betrayal of her love for Arthur. It seemed so base of her, when her husband whom she loved died, simply to take his brother instead. Still, she remembered that before Arthur's death, she had harbored fond, albeit chaste, feelings for Henry. She certainly liked him as her friend.  
"I do not compare you to your brother," Katherine tried to assure him. "All those things you said about Arthur are true, but they do not diminish your own merits."  
"To you they do. To my father they do. He thinks me a dolt and a rascal, and not worth my weight in salt. He bemoans Arthur's death daily, and swears that he would rather put Margaret on the throne than me. Only Mother ever loved us all the same." His lip began to quiver. "Katherine, I am going to be so alone. Margaret will leave this spring to marry the King of Scots, and I love my sister Mary, but she is just a little girl. I will have no one but Father, and he is so aggrieved by Mother's—Mother's death that I think he has quite forgotten I exist."  
Katherine did not know from whence it came, but her heart was suddenly overflowing with affection and goodwill toward the prince. She stood and reached out her arms to Henry, realizing as she did that he was quite as tall as she was. She pulled him against her in a tight embrace and summoned all her rudimentary maternal feeling, trying with all her might to channel warmth and strength into him. It took her a moment to realize that Henry was sobbing into the velvet of her bodice with an abandon only a child could possess. She pressed him to her bosom, allowing her own tears to spill afresh. Together, they cried for the loss of Arthur and Elizabeth. They both cried with fear for their safety in a court where they would be alone with a malevolent king. Katherine realized in that moment that she and Henry were the only allies left to one another. For the thousandth time since her death, the queen's warning to her to be dutiful to her son rattled around in her mind. If she could not make herself love Henry as a wife now, she must at least try to love him as his mother had. She had sworn an oath to protect him, to give her life for him if she must. She would never allow herself to forget that promise for as long as she lived.  
When they separated, Henry, with practiced decorum, offered his handkerchief to Katherine and wiped his own face clumsily with the back of his hand. "I am sorry," he said abashedly, avoiding her gaze.  
"You were right that I do not want to marry you," Katherine said slowly. "There are too many years between us. But I will try to want to marry you, and I will, if we are still betrothed when you become a man."  
Henry looked hopeful. "You will?"  
"It is the will of God and my father," Katherine said. "I cannot gainsay them."  
"Will you be my friend, then, until you have fallen in love with me?" Henry asked, with a hint of his usual cheek.  
Katherine smiled wanly down at him. "I will be your very best friend, if that is what you wish."


	19. Much Ado About Marriage

1503  
Henry VII hunched over his desk, shivering in his doublet despite the heavy fur mantle draped around him. He was glad that no one save his mother and the court physicians dared intrude upon him in the library that had now become his living quarters, for he knew himself to look a frightful and most unkingly wretch. He had lost weight since Elizabeth and the baby's deaths, his face, covered in several days' worth of stubble, transformed into a gaunt mask, twisted with sorrow. He rarely ventured out of his lair to take meals and change his clothes. He slept even less frequently, but when his fatigue was so great that the words in the books he read obsessively blurred beyond recognition before his eyes, he did not leave his desk. He collapsed instead with his head on his arms, though it was never more than a few hours later when he jolted awake again, wracked with coughing or chills or the simple agony of knowing that he could not take refuge from his sorrows in the arms of his wife, the only woman he had so much as looked at in seventeen years.  
The king coughed wetly into his sleeve, shaking so hard that his teeth rattled in his head. The physicians told him that he was afflicted with a lingering malignancy similar to that which had plagued young Arthur during the last winter of his life. Now, he wondered how Arthur had borne up so well under the burden of his suffering. A smaller, meaner part of his mind wondered how he, Arthur's father, had so callously dismissed the boy's sickness and failed so utterly to protect him. How could he have expected Arthur to go through a public wedding, a public bedding, and then a trip across the country to a dank and windswept castle? It was unconscionable.  
Henry's restless fingers began to beat out a tattoo upon the polished desktop. How could it be that in the span of a year, his family had been reduced two two-thirds its original size, all by the cruelest of circumstances? That is plain enough to see, the insidious voice whispered in his mind. It is God punishing you for your irreverence, Henry Tudor, the Usurper.  
Henry knew in his heart of hearts that he had no right to his throne, and now, in the sharp light of exhaustion and misery, it was painfully easy to realize that all his actions up to that point had been guided by his shame over that very fact. Why else would he have dealt so severely with the rebels and imposters of his early reign? Why else had he been so consumed with arranging a magnificent marriage for Arthur? Why else would he have risked the life of his firstborn for a pile of gold? Why else would he have pressured his poor, lovely wife, who was of an age when childbearing is a dangerous endeavor for a woman, to try to give him a son to fill the role of spare prince young Henry had vacated? It was this question, more than the others, which kept the king's few snatched hours of sleep—hours to which he indeed felt he had no right—plagued with night terrors.  
The privy council had been clamoring for a meeting since Henry went into seclusion. He had disregarded their overtures up until a day ago, when they had finally prevailed upon his mother, who brought along with his dinner an official missive urging him to take another wife. Elizabeth's travail had been for naught, for a dead princess was of no value to anybody, and Henry was now left worse off than he had been before she conceived. Now, he was a widower with only two daughters and a son who could easily follow his brother to the grave, leaving the Tudors vulnerable and a resurgence of the civil wars Henry had put an end to a real possibility. He detested the idea of so much as touching someone other than Elizabeth, but even in the depths of despair he was at his core a pragmatist and saw the necessity to take another bride. To make things even simpler, though rather more loathsome in his opinion, the council had already put forward their chosen candidate in their letter.  
King Henry VII, with a heart as heavy as a stone, gathered together inkwell, quill, and parchment in preparation to compose a formal marriage proposal. It would be the third one from him in a year to reach the court of Aragon.

***

Weeks later, the Dowager Princess of Wales sat in the royal nursery, her hands neatly plaiting Princess Mary Tudor's copper-red hair into a single, fat braid as her sister Margaret, embroidering the neckline of a kirtle nearby, looked on and the Prince of Wales stood beside her, raptly watching her progress. Mary was a very pretty, if retiring little girl, and Katherine made it a priority of hers to visit her often, feeling it the least she could do now that the child's mother was gone. Margaret, who worried that once she left court her siblings would be neglected by their grief-stricken father, approved of Katherine's efforts and had made a concerted effort to be more friendly to her sister-in-law. Katherine could tell that she was often bored with embroidery and chafed at the constraints Katherine still lived under as a widow, but it was enough for her that Margaret tried.  
Prince Henry, for his part, had taken to his new position as Katherine's "best friend" with gusto. Now that they were engaged, it was no longer inappropriate for Katherine to attend public functions, though she took care not to appear to enjoy herself too much and had decided to continue wearing black clothing until after the anniversary of Arthur's death. Whenever she joined the royal party at table in the great hall, Henry would act the part of a gentleman, bowing extravagantly and kissing her hand or serving her the choice morsels from each dish before taking some himself. Whenever his sisters would giggle or sigh with exasperation at his behavior, Henry would turn a stern visage upon them and say in a very matter-of-fact way that barely concealed the humor bubbling underneath, "One day, Her Highness Katherine is to be my wife. Until then, I shall be her very best friend so that she will not forget me before I come of age and run away with a stable boy." Jests such as these often made Katherine laugh in spite of herself, even as she tried to avoid thinking about the reality of what being Henry's wife would truly mean for her.  
After their visit with Mary, Margaret left them outside the nursery door. Surrounded by a gaggle of happily chattering women, she made her way back to her chambers to try on yet another ensemble that would be included in her trousseau. Katherine watched her go, a tall and well-made girl, if not technically beautiful. She was not quite fourteen, Katherine thought wistfully, and yet within a span of a few months she would be a wife, and soon after might carry the heir to a kingdom in her womb. Meanwhile, Katherine herself was a maid still at seventeen.  
"Will you be joining the Princess Dowager for dinner today, Your Highness?" asked Maria de Salinas, coming up to stand at Katherine's elbow. Like all of Katherine's ladies, it had not taken Maria long to develop a soft spot for the irrepressible young prince, and Henry had confided to Katherine that "Mary Black-Eyes" (his pet name for her) was "the comeliest of her womenfolk", despite her queer Spanish way of dressing.  
Henry grinned up at Maria. "But of course, Mary, I must dine with Her Highness Katherine. We are the best of friends, after all." Katherine smiled in spite of herself.  
Later, over a meal of venison pie, Henry made an announcement that nearly caused Katherine to choke on her wine. "I have it on good authority that my father has entertained thoughts of breaking off our engagement and marrying you himself."  
"On whose authority?" Katherine spluttered, utterly taken aback. Marry the conniving old king? She couldn't even think about it.  
"Oh, his," said Henry matter-of-factly, casually sipping from his goblet.  
Katherine was aghast. "Henry, surely you are joking!"  
"Oh, but I am not. He summoned me to his library and told me he planned to marry you, in order to father more heirs on you."  
Katherine's hand began to tremble so violently, her knife clattered against her trencher and she had to put it down. Noticing a lull in her ladies' conversation, she glanced over to the long table where they took their meals and found them all gawking at her openmouthed.  
"What ... what did you tell your father?" Katherine ventured after a pregnant pause.  
"I flew into a hellish temper and called him a wizened old devil," Henry said flatly.  
Katherine gasped. "Oh Henry, you didn't!"  
"I did so. I must say, it took him a moment to gather his wits after that. He's used to Arthur, you see—Arthur, who was biddable and agreeable. Arthur was a good son," he grinned, "but I, Katherine—I am most wicked and bad."  
"Did your father strike you for your insolence?" Katherine asked in a hushed voice, hoping that by asking after the details of the confrontation she could delay knowing how it finished for just a few moments longer. She knew that there was nothing Henry could do if his father wanted to take her as his own bride; nor was there any objection she herself could make to the match. Only her parents could intervene on her behalf, and if they could countenance her marrying a boy five years her junior, they would certainly have no qualms about promising her to a man more than thirty her senior.  
Henry was talking again. "Oh, he was wrathful! He threatened to bash my brains in, called me every bad name I knew—and some I did not, but took note of. In the end, though, he did not touch me. He is too afraid of me dying to ever hurt me."  
"Henry, what an awful thing to say!"  
"Why, it's true," he retorted. "At any rate, I don't think it mattered that I stormed against him." Katherine waited with bated breath for his next sentence, knowing in her gut that he was going to say that despite his protests, she would be forced to marry his aging, ailing father.  
"He summoned me to his lair a few days later," recounted Henry, "and told me not to worry, that your parents had spoken out against the proposal and that everything is as it was."  
Katherine breathed a sigh of relief, the wheels beginning to turn in her mind. Of course her parents, ambitious as they were for all their children's futures, would not want her to marry the old king instead of his son. Like everyone at the English court, they would have heard the rumors that King Henry was ill and entering the twilight years of his life. If their young daughter were to marry him now, she would only be queen for a handful of years, certainly not long enough to introduce Spanish influence to the politics of England in any meaningful way. If she were to marry the robust young prince, however, she would have the opportunity to represent the interests of her homeland for decades to come. Her shoulders sagged with relief, and she gave Prince Henry's hand a rare squeeze.  
"Thank you, Henry, for putting my fears at rest," she said with genuine warmth. "From now on, for the love of God, try not to frighten me to death before delivering good news."


	20. The Princess's Condemnation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, readers. That was a long time coming. Sorry for the unexpectedly long break in uploading. I guess my muse went on summer vacation to the Bahamas. Either way, I hope my readers will still do me the kindness of commenting and critiquing my work. Much love. —VBC

1503  
Katherine watched, her vision blurred with tears, as Margaret Tudor, soon-to-be Queen of Scots, kissed the forehead of her sister Mary and sipped from the stirrup cup the Prince of Wales proffered. After Margaret's departure from Richmond this day, the twenty-seventh of June, the royal family of England would have dwindled down to only three members. King Henry would accompany his daughter as far as the Scottish border at Berwick upon Tweed, a journey that would take at least a full month. Meanwhile, the two remaining royal children, as well as Katherine herself, were to be left in the care of the Countess of Richmond.  
Katherine shaded her eyes against the sun so she could observe the royal procession in all its glory. The king looked somewhat restored to health, though there was no hiding the weight he had shed nor the deep purple shadows around his eyes. Still, he made a valiant effort to appear normal before the courtiers gathered to send him on his way. He waved jovially to Mary and Henry, and even doffed his cap in a courtly salute to Katherine before spurring on his white charger. Behind him, her posture upright and graceful, Margaret followed at a brisk trot. Seated side-saddle, her emerald skirts fanning out around her, it was more clear than ever to Katherine that the eager girl she had first met eighteen months before was maturing into a lively, passionate woman with a glorious mane of hair and luminous, intelligent eyes. She remembered Margaret's final words to her, spoken over a light breakfast in Katherine's privy chamber.  
"Sister, I am aware of the oath my mother made you swear to her before she died," said Margaret bluntly, deftly slicing her beef and laying the strips evenly on a thick slab of bread.  
Katherine looked away quickly, unwilling to meet Margaret's hawkish gaze. Which one of the ladies-in-waiting had told her about Elizabeth's final words to her? Whoever it was, Katherine would like to box her ears.  
"You know you have to keep your word," said Margaret. "Not only is it the right thing, but you know that your conscience won't allow you to avoid it. You're too pious for your own good, my father says."  
"Your father has many opinions about me," Katherine blurted, then immediately regretted it. Margaret shared a special bond with the king, and she had no doubt that any unkindness she expressed toward him would surely be relayed to him by her.  
To her surprise, Margaret's response was mild. "True enough. But Katherine, you know as well as I do that my grandmother is infirm and in no condition to look after Henry and Mary. It has fallen more and more to me to make sure they are doing well at their lessons, that they pray regularly, that they remember that dancing and singing and merriment still exist outside this dismal place. Once I am gone, who will take this burden upon themselves?"  
"It is your father's duty to provide them with a mother," Katherine retorted. "Let him be remarried."  
Margaret raised her feathered eyebrows in a wordless reproof of Katherine's callousness. "You do not need me to tell you that my father has already known and lost the greatest love of his life. Would you have him take another wife against his will? Moreover, would you have him consign some poor woman to the fate of being married to a man whom she could never please?"  
Unexpectedly, Katherine felt her ire rise. Gripping her knife so hard, it trembled in her white-knuckled fist, she fixed Margaret Tudor with a baleful look. "Is that not, madam, what your father is doing to me?"  
Margaret regarded her with her father's pitiless dark eyes. "Katherine, so is the fate of women. No one asked after my thoughts when drafting my marriage treaty to James of Scots. I simply had to accept that that was the husband it benefited my father to choose for me. I do not complain, I am not a thorn in my father's side. I do not mope and rebuff everyone's attempts to cheer me as you do, Katherine."  
"It is easy for you, Margaret! You do not know what it is like to have loved someone with your entire heart, only to have him cruelly torn from your arms. You do not have to suffer the agony of seeing your dead husband in the face of his brother, whom one day you will have to wed and bed as though he were the one intended for you all along."  
"Arthur is dead," Margaret said with finality. "You have had over a year to cope with that. What kind of a wife will you make for your living husband when all your days are spent pining after a ghost?"  
"It is wrong, this betrothal to Henry! You must see that! In Holy Scripture, it is written that a man must not marry his brother's widow, for it is incest and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord." Katherine had worked herself into a fury now, leaning across the table and practically shouting into the face of her younger sister-in-law, who sat like her father often did on the other side of his desk, stony and unperturbed.  
"A dispensation allowing your union with Henry has already been granted. Your soul is not in any danger—especially since you and Arthur never shared a bed," Margaret insisted.  
Katherine averted her gaze. "That is the thing, Margaret. We ... we tried ... We almost succeeded in ... in the act of love," she mumbled. "Our marriage was not wholly chaste."  
Her admission was followed by what felt to Katherine like an eternity of silence. Then, Margaret rose and walked around the table, coming to a stop mere inches from where she cowered in her seat.  
"I will pretend that I never heard that," Margaret said coolly. "I am a dutiful daughter and sister, and to expose your secret would do nothing but sever our father's alliance and break Henry's heart. But you, Katherine of Spain—you have been untruthful. For whatever reasons, you were dishonest to the family of your first husband, whom you claim to have loved so deeply. Now, you are to be wed to a man whom it is against Christian laws for you to have. Have you considered that by doing this, you have also sealed my brother's fate? God only knows the misery that will befall him for his unwitting sin."  
"I know," Katherine groaned, staring down at her untouched food.  
"I will take my leave of you now," Margaret said flatly. "I hope you and I never have cause to speak to one another again."  
At the door, the fourteen-year-old former princess of England turned around. "Make sure my brother is well cared for. It is the least you can do for him." She swept out of the room.  
Now, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, Katherine watched the last of Margaret's retinue disappear and the dust-clouds kicked up by their mounts settle back to the earth. With nothing else to entertain them, the assembled onlookers began to trickle back into the coolness of the palace. Last to go were the openly weeping Princess Mary and her nurse and Henry, Prince of Wales, who waved at her good-naturedly before scampering away. She raised her face to the heavens, drinking in the summer sun that reminded her so much of her homeland. Even after beads of sweat had begun to slide down her neck, she stood there, thinking. In her heart, she was speaking to Arthur, to Elizabeth, and to God. I must let my old life go. I must atone for my deception. I must keep my word.  
Later that day, as a disgruntled Doña Elvira attempted to disguise the light sunburn on Katherine's cheeks with a foul-smelling paste of egg whites, she made up her mind to finally be rid of her widow's weeds. She had to trust that Arthur would understand.  
When it was time for supper, Katherine informed her women that they would be taking their meal in the great hall for the first time in months. To everyone's surprise, she then asked Maria de Salinas, in the cheeriest tone she could muster, to help her into her favorite blue velvet gown and sleeves whose cuffs were embellished in pure gold. She took off her chin-barb and wimple, then had the Vargas twins comb her hair until it shone. Doña Elvira did not even protest when she said she would be wearing it loose tonight. Though Margaret's harsh words still echoed in her mind, when Katherine beheld her reflection in the surface of her silver mirror, she could not help but smile. It was as if she were an entirely new woman.  
***  
"Mary, poppet, look at Princess Katherine!" Prince Henry told his little sister in an excited whisper.  
The little girl turned her pretty head and stared wide-eyed at the lady who swept into the great hall at the head of a group of smiling women, her ears and neck and even her fingers dripping with jewels. At the sight of her sister-in-law, Mary's mouth fell open. She wracked her brain, but could not recall a time when she had seen Princess Katherine wearing anything but plain black dresses and a voluminous wimple that concealed all her beautiful hair from view.  
"She looks like an angel," said Mary in awed admiration. "Henry, doesn't she look like an angel?"  
"Yes," affirmed Henry, so absorbed in watching Katherine gliding toward the high table, her train held by the pretty lady-in-waiting he called Mary Black-Eyes, that he quite forgot the plate of roast pheasant before him, as well as the fact that as the most important royal personage present, he now occupied his father's chair at the head of the table.  
Though he knew that they were just friends, and though it sometimes distressed him to no end that Katherine looked at him as merely a little boy, Henry had to admit that his attraction toward her had only deepened in the months since their betrothal. Each day, he reveled in the time he got to spend in her presence, and each night he tossed and turned in his bed, anticipating what they would do on the morrow. Tonight, though, as she seated herself gracefully at his right hand and struck up a lively conversation with the Countess of Richmond about different varieties of roses, Henry made up his mind. He loved Katherine of Aragon—loved her with every fiber of his young being.  
"So," said Katherine to Henry after the servants had cleared away the remnants of their supper, "now that I am officially no longer in mourning, I am now free to dance in public. Would you be opposed if my ladies and I entertain the court with some of our Spanish dances?"  
Henry stood quickly, before she could change her mind. "Only if I may join you," he said, a grin spreading across his face.


	21. Anger and Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers. I apologize to those of you who have already read the original version of Chapter 21. I hope this update doesn't cause too much confusion. I just wasn't satisfied with the lack of depth I gave to Queen Isabel's death, which left the whole chapter feeling kind of empty and superficial to me, in the end. I hope everyone else, like me, finds this chapter to be an improvement over the other. Comments are always welcome! —VBC,

1504  
Katherine and her ladies tramped noisily into her lodgings at Greenwich Palace in snow-crusted boots, their voices tremulous with cold as they chattered exuberantly about the day's activities. They had accompanied the men of the court on a hunt that windswept December afternoon, and from their side-saddles had been treated to the rousing spectacle of Charles Brandon, Prince Henry's handsome favorite, felling a proud stag with one well-placed arrow. Maria, who of late had found herself quite taken with Brandon, could not stifle the grin that had spread across her face, and even Katherine, who personally thought Brandon rather a rascal, gasped and crooned along with the rest of her attendants at the sight. Now, as Blanca de Vargas helped her out of her sodden boots and the fur-lined cloak that had been her Yuletide gift from the Prince of Wales, her heart beat with a vigor she had quite forgotten she had ever possessed, and even the penetrating cold could not drive away her good cheer.  
Katherine had fallen prey to a lingering illness in the summer of that year, a malady of body and mind that she had failed to shake off despite the ministrations of King Henry's best court physicians. She had never quite adjusted to England the way she thought she should have. The damp, the colder climate—even the food—all disagreed with her in some way or other. It did not help that she had never fully regained the weight her dire illness of two years before had caused her to lose. For months, she lived with a nearly constant fever, plagued by chills and a disturbing lack of appetite. She whiled away whole weeks without ever leaving her bed-chamber, and though the king, the prince, and even Princess Mary visited regularly, her loneliness and discomfort, as well as the ghastly experience of being bled frequently, left her miserable and dejected. Most painful of all for Katherine was her parents' silence. Though she and King Ferdinand had kept up a regular correspondence the entire time she had been in England, suddenly none of Katherine's increasingly desperate messages asking after his and Queen Isabel's health had met with even the most perfunctory response. Had her health not taken a decided turn for the better since the cold weather set in, Katherine fully believed that she would have driven herself quite mad with worry for her parents by now.  
"My Lady, I think I caught His Highness the Prince giving you rather an appraising look when you passed by him during the chase," commented Maria de Salinas, her dark eyes dancing with merriment. "I dare say he has noticed the pretty color you have in your cheeks."  
"How many times must I tell you?" Katherine asked her, half-exasperatedly. "The prince is but thirteen years old—I love him as a sister would, no more."  
"My Lady, forgive me for my frankness, but you know as well as I that, according to your marriage contract, you are to wed His Highness as soon as he reaches the age of majority. That's only six months from now. I do hope you find something to love about him—he is a handsome young man, after all—or it will be long ere England has an heir and the old king can rest easy again."  
Katherine opened her mouth to respond, though she little knew what to say. Maria, as she so often did, had just voiced Katherine's own concerns aloud. It was true that the treaty her parents and the king had hammered out regarding her marriage to Henry stipulated that they would commence living together as husband and wife once the Prince turned fourteen. Just think" about it made her stomach quake with nerves. How on Earth could she, at nineteen years old, muster wifely affection for a mere boy like Henry. It was true that, at the beginning of their betrothal, they had become good friends, but over the years that friendship had failed utterly to morph into anything more substantial. She shuddered at the thought of what her wedding night would look like. Surely, it would be a travesty when compared to those all-too-brief moments of passion with Arthur, which now felt like they belonged to another lifetime entirely.  
Katherine was spared from answering Maria's comment by the sudden appearance of Doña Elvira. The duenna bore down on her favorite lady, chins wobbling and bosom heaving. "You talk like a coarse, unlettered peasant," she rebuked Maria, who actually bared her teeth with dislike.  
"Doña Elvira ..." began Katherine, wanting to intercede on Maria's behalf.  
"No," cried the duenna, a patchy flush working its way up from the high neckline of her dowdy gray gown. "This household has become desperately lax of late," she boomed, her condemning tone silencing the few maids who had continued to murmur amongst themselves even after her appearance. "Frankly, Your Highness, I am ashamed of you. There are plenty among your ladies better versed in etiquette than Señorita Salinas, and yet you choose to take her into your confidence, to favor her above all the others. One wonders how this lapse in judgment bodes for your future competency as queen of this realm."  
Stung, Katherine made to protest, but Doña Elvira raised a fat, beringed hand and continued stridently, "Furthermore, what am I to make of your recent habit of disappearing off to gallivant all over England in the presence of such rakes as Prince Henry keeps in his retinue? You shame yourself and your parents' names, Catalina!"  
"Doña Elvira!" protested Katherine, feeling her already windburned cheeks heat with indignation, even as she trembled with fear, for she had never seen her nurse in such a temper. "I am not behaving indecorously! I do not go anyplace alone with the Prince's men—I merely accompany them on hunts or watch them practice their fencing or play tennis. I don't even talk to them!"  
"In Spain," roared Doña Elvira, positively purple in the face now, "Your Highness would not presume to go out and about unveiled, and yet you have not worn your mantilla for months now! In Spain, you would not dare to show yourself in public with your gowns cut so low, lest your mother see you so debased!"  
"My gowns are perfectly respectable!" retorted Katherine, righteous anger now completely overriding her natural urge to obey the duenna. "In fact, they are positively tame compared to what some of the other ladies wear."  
"The Prince is not looking to marry some common English strumpet," remonstrated Doña Elvira. "He is expecting to marry the daughter of the most Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, defenders of the faith!"  
"I rather think Prince Henry likes the way I dress," rejoined Katherine, though she had seen so little of Henry since being struck ill, she hardly knew this to be fact. "I certainly am much happier, now that I have diversions and friends—"  
"Friends?" repeated Doña Elvira incredulously, as if the concept was utterly foreign to her. "Friends?" She paused for a moment, her chins trembling with rage, and in that moment, Katherine knew an emotion she had never felt toward her duenna, whom until now she had always seen as motherly and well-meaning: resentment.  
"It matters not," Doña Elvira pronounced in a more level tone, drawing herself up to her full height and puffing out her massive chest. "I henceforth forbid you or any other woman under my care from cavorting about the countryside in the company of the Prince's attendants until such a time as you can once again call yourself Her Highness the Princess of Wales. God willing, it shall not be to long hence."  
"You—you can't—" Katherine spluttered, as the rest of the ladies made similar sounds of disgruntlement and disbelief.  
"Your parents entrusted you to my care, Catalina," Doña Elvira said sternly. "It is up to me to preserve your virtue until you are married."  
Katherine took a step toward the duenna, fully prepared to continue the argument for hours to come, but just then a timid-looking page pushed open the chamber door, admitting a manservant wearing King Henry's colors.  
"His Grace requires the Princess Dowager to attend upon him in his study at Her Highness's earliest convenience," intoned the servant solemnly.  
"We'll finish this later," Katherine snapped at Doña Elvira in the most petulant, imperious tone she could muster. Then, without giving her nurse a moment to reply, she bustled from her rooms, tailing the liveried servant as he wound his way through the halls and galleries of the palace.  
King Henry's study at Greenwich was quite similar to the one he lurked in most days while at Richmond, though slightly smaller and less grand. The king himself also seemed greatly reduced from the imposing figure Katherine had first met three years ago at Dogmersfield. Since the short-lived interest he had shown in Katherine herself, Henry had made no further attempts to procure a new bride. In the absence of a wife, he had grown increasingly sickly and reclusive. Like Katherine, he suffered from frequent spells of ill health which had sapped most of his former vitality. The man who sat across from the polished wooden desk from her was rail-thin in his somber attire. His shoulder blades, beneath the heavy damask, jutted out like a pair of primordial wings. His hair was almost entirely gray, and, most jarringly of all, he had lost many teeth since Elizabeth's death. Even his most sincere smiles now reminded Katherine irrepressibly of the grin of an old fox. Today, though, he was unsmiling. His fingers danced across the desktop, and when he fixed her with those discerning dark eyes, Katherine noted a peculiar emotion in their deaths. She had no time to ponder this, however, because before she had even fully gotten the study door shut behind, her, the king had begun to speak.  
"Your Highness, I am afraid I have some heavy tidings which it has fallen to me to inform you of."  
Katherine stood stock-still. It was beginning to dawn on her what the unfamiliar look in King Henry's eyes was. It was a look of pity. What would he have to pity her for? They were one and the same, were they not? Both were widowed, both unwell, both confined, one way or another, to sober, stilted routines. Perhaps, she thought wildly, her betrothal to the Prince had been broken off? Maybe Margaret had decided to confide to her father what Katherine had told her before she departed for Scotland. But why would she choose to expose her now?  
"Katherine, I just received word today from Your Father ..." The king cleared his throat in obvious discomfort. Her father? What could Ferdinand have possibly written that was causing him to behave so strangely?  
"Your Grace?" Katherine said into the silence.  
The king started as if he had forgotten that se was even in the room. There was a moment of silence, in which he seemed to wrestle with himself, but then, abruptly, he squared his shoulders, looked her in the eye, and began to speak in a flat, even tone.  
"Your Highness, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that, on the twenty-sixth of November, Her Grace the Queen of Castille, your mother, Isabel, departed this earth. She had battled with a prolonged illness, and it wore her out. Your father's misssive apprising me of her death just arrived today. He wished me to tell you."  
Numbness. It was as if Katherine's soul were a candle, and a gale force wind had swept into her and blown it out. She stood rooted to the spot, her hands resting lightly upon the desk as if the heaviest weight had not just settled upon her shoulders. She thought that all grief would be like the crushing, heartwrenching agony that had gripped her upon learning of Arthur's death. This, however, was nothing like that. It was as if all the frigid winter air from outside the palace walls were being siphoned into her body, chilling her very bones, leaving them so brittle, the touch of a feather could shatter her. The loss of Arthur had gutted her. This pain was more insidious. The realization of all that she had lost crashed in upon her like waves of such magnitude that she couldn't even cry, couldn't even scream, couldn't even truly comprehend the vastness of her loss.  
Katherine felt her lips and tongue move as she politely excused herself. She felt her legs moving beneath her, first curtsying, then carrying her backward out of the king's study. She heard, as if from underwater, King Henry's feeble condolences. What did it all matter anyway?  
She drifted in a haze through the corridors and galleries, rote memory guiding her back to her chambers. Dimly, she took note of the fact that Doña Elvira was no longer lecturing her ladies. Funny, she mused in a daze, how her duenna always made herself scarce when some great calamity took place in Katherine's life.  
Maria de Salinas approached her, sour-faced. "She went to air her grievances out with the king, the fat old cow. Probably going to have him backing her up about not allowing us out of ... My Lady? Are you ill?"  
Katherine swiveled her head toward her greatest friend with what felt to her like comical slowness. "The queen ... My mother the queen ... Queen Isabel is dead." Then she sank to her knees and began to wail.  
***  
"Remember Brandon, this is important," hissed Prince Henry to the handsome young man who had accompanied him on this visit and who now stood with him, poised on the threshold of Katherine of Aragon's privy chamber. "It's not a social call, so have some manners."  
"Have a little more faith in me than that, My Lord," assured Charles Brandon, direly serious. "I may make light of many things, but never something like this."  
"Good," said Henry, satisfied. "Come on, then."  
The fat old nurse looked on beadily from her heavy, carved chair by the fire in Katherine's privy chamber. Henry eyed her with ill-concealed distaste. It was unnatural, how she reveled in her position as overseer of her mistress's misery. She took too much pleasure in guarding the princess, turning away visitors whom she deemed would disturb Katherine even further. She had already barred Henry from entering once, and it was only after his father insisted that Katherine's betrothed be allowed to pay his condolences that she, ever so reluctantly, admitted him to the princess's inner rooms.  
I am not scared of you, Henry thought at her, hoping the old bat would somehow get the message. Then he turned his attention away from her and toward the diminutive figure, clad in black, that occupied the chair at her right hand. He approached Princess Katherine, Brandon in tow.  
"How are you today?" he asked his fiancée, bowing low and kissing one of the hands that rested, limp and pale, in her lap.  
Katherine blinked down at him, her eyes red-rimmed and weary. "I am well," she said mechanically. Her eyes—much darker blue than his own—gazed straight through Henry's face. "Please rise," she added after a pause, almost as an afterthought.  
Henry rose from his bow, but only to his knees. He had grown much taller of late, and on her feet, the tip of Katherine's gable hood only barely brushed his shoulder. If he were to stand now, he would tower far above her, and that was not the way he wanted her to see him now. He grasped her hand.  
"I know you are not well," he said softly, so only she, and not the gaggle of women surrounding them, could hear. "You can't help it."  
"It's been a week already," she said flatly. "I feel like it should be getting better, or at least, easier to bear ..."  
"That's what I thought at first," Henry told her. He closed his eyes briefly then, against the memory of those first days after Queen Elizabeth's death. He had never expected his mother to die so young. As a matter of fact, he had never considered what it would be like if she died, at all. Maybe that was part of why her death had hurt so badly—the fact that his grief was underpinned with shock and disbelief.  
"I can't talk about it now, Henry," Katherine said suddenly, in a voice that was far louder than he thought she'd meant to use. She snatched her hand from his, and he tried not to let the hurt this rejection caused show on his face.  
"I understand your hurt," Henry said, trying to sound older, wiser, kinder than his years. "I lost my mother not too long ago, Katherine. Don't you remember? Don't you remember that day, in the garden? What you did for me?"  
"You were—are—a child," she retorted, and he noticed how hoarse her voice had become. Most people would not realize the change, for Katherine had always had a low and smoky voice, but Henry, who hung on to her every word and expression, who replayed even the briefest encounters over and over in his mind late into the night, heard it loud and clear. He wondered how much of the past week she had spent screaming into her pillow when sleep refused to take her into its loving, numbing embrace.  
"Everyone feels pain, Katherine. It doesn't matter that I was a child, or that you are a woman. We have both lost our mothers. I can help you."  
"How?" her voice was incredulous, mean. "What could you do for me, Henry Tudor? You, who are not even a man?"  
I could love you, Henry thought. I could lift you into my aarms and carry you away to someplace quiet and beautiful, and I could kiss your cheeks and your long hair and your hands and your beautiful eyes until you forgot all your cares and your pain.  
"I could listen," he said, "as you once listened to me. I could stay here, and bear witness to your grief, so you do not have to feel it alone. I could ..." He trailed off as the first tear began to trace a solitary path from the corner of one blue stormcloud of an eye and down the curve of her cheek. He decided not to say anything more. Instead, he took her hands in his, and remained there, kneeling at her feet, oblivious of all the people standing around them.  
I love this woman, he thought, with conviction. Even now, when she is so consumed with pain, there is no room left for me or anyone else—I love Katherine of Aragon ...


End file.
